Matlab prerelease practices
Matlab previously made prerelease users sign a non-disclosure agreement (NDA), which hindered users from giving feedback about significant changes or bugs. Developers of Matlab packages were likewise inhibited from updating their packages to work with new syntax or features. There was typically one prerelease and the official release would sometimes have large jumps between the prerelease and added, removed, or changed features. Each official release would have a few updates to fix bugs and add minor features. Each official release was a gamble as to its quality and support by third-party packages.
Thankfully, Mathworks loosened the prerelease restrictions to allow public discussion and implementation of prerelease features. Matlab prereleases are updated several times before the official release to help ensure features and fixes work across the diverse computing platforms Matlab supports. Kudos to Mathworks for having a more open prerelease process.