Would it be sufficient to just slap a big "Warning: Advanced Users Only!" label on the custom image option? I understand not wanting not-so-technical users to underestimate the difficulty of setting up a custom install and having a bad experience, but I think it's safe to assume that the not-so-technical users will be stick the default images, while the hard-core OS geeks will be willing to put up with, say, importing a QEMU or ISO image.

Why not provide early access to new features to technical people who don't mind to be on the bleeding edge? That would be a sword cutting on two edges since you'll get high quality feedback in an early stage.

Then everybody will assume he's technical enough and still flood the trackers with issues that are more of a pebkac than a real problem. It would probably end up like the dev-builds of IOs7: People were downvoting apps because they crashed, even though it was impossible for the app authors to rectify the problems.

> Why not provide early access to new features to technical people who don't mind to be on the bleeding edge? That would be a sword cutting on two edges since you'll get high quality feedback in an early stage.

I'd hazard a guess and say that people who often think they are on the bleeding edge aren't, and therefore get themselves into trouble.

Because that would create an endless stream of negative blog posts as the bleeding edge changes and breaks these people's software. It doesn't matter if they should have known better, it's still negative press, I wouldn't do it if I were DO.

I am kind of interested in this disparity. What are you seeing? Are you getting a whole lot of people who are very inexperienced but trying to keep up. Or is it more people who are technically lazy?