[Nexus One Themes and Apps] neatchee:
I know it's been a while since this was posted - I've been absolutely swamped with emails and forum posts, as you can imagine - but I wanted to come back and answer this post, because it is VERY well thought out and, more importantly, reasonable.

First of all I want to say that the language issue is a HUGE priority for us right now, both with the beta and our OEM releases. We know that Swype's popularity has placed it in the hands of people around the world (another reason we chose OEM: to maintain control of which markets we're supporting along the way to supporting everyone), and adding more languages, better dictionaries, and better interfaces for dealing with those dictionaries is paramount to our continued success and our users' continued happiness. At this juncture, it's a race against time. How quickly does the demand become overwhelming versus how quickly we can safely expand our staff without compromising quality. Let me assure everyone that language support - and everything that goes into it - is being worked on all day every day.

As far as error messages are concerned, our servers got absolutely smashed during the first several days after opening the beta to the public. No excuses there; we simply weren't prepared for the kind of response we got. Everything is back in order now, and we've put together an excellent FAQ which covers the vast majority of error cases. If anyone continues to have problems, you can email androidbeta@swype.com or even send me an email directly and we'll make sure to get you up and running if it's humanly possible.

So this is kind of a double-edged sword I'm about to bring:

On the one hand, I want to assure you that we have NO intention of leaving our testers without a means to continue using Swype. Just like with the recent update, we will always have a new version of the beta available to our testers before the current version expires. The expiration is in place primarily for version control; we don't want old versions of swype floating around in the wild.

On the other hand - and I'll be blunt here - there is a sense of entitlement there that doesn't resonate well with some here at SwypeInc. You are all being incredibly helpful and providing us with a wealth of data that is extremely valuable, and we care immensely about our community and your opinions; however, at the same time, when we feel like we're being told that anyone deserves our software for free, it rubs people the wrong way. To be honest - and I'm speaking here as the guy who wasn't employed with Swype when the beta was first released, and was one of the people encouraging them to start a beta in the first place - a beta of this nature is a bonus for both sides, but it's not a necessity. Does it generate positivity about our product? Absolutely. Is it good for our users? For sure! Does it make our work easier and more effective? No question! But all that being said, it's still something that many companies do very well without. We like having a beta for you, and we like getting info back from you about the beta, but it's not the end-all be-all if you know what I mean.

I agree completely. What goes on here can make or break a product, that's for sure. I mean, the fact that I'm employed for the sole purpose of reading emails, forums, and twitter posts says something about the company's recognition of how important the community is.

I want to make it known that using metamorph to theme an existing Swype installation isn't what we're so worried about. Our concern is from a legal perspective: if we don't zealously pursue people who redistribute our software, we run the risk of losing our copyrights and patents. Just don't redistribute our copyrighted material and all will be well. :)

I've already talked about languages and dictionaries, so the only thing I'll say here is that those hacked dictionaries you're talking about are incredibly out of date, and we can't simply hand out new (some unfinished) language files, because our partnerships include language development. We can't give something away for free that doesn't belong to us entirely, at least not without clearing it with them (which you can imagine how long that kind of thing takes).

Believe me, we don't wonder why you pirate (and it's still piracy. Remember, piracy is copying or redistributing a copyrighted work without the owner's permissions). To be honest, it's kind of flattering :) But we're all playing a balancing act here, and calling up our partners to explain how we just handed out unrestricted, free, open-sourced copies of the stuff they invested millions of dollars for isn't something we look forward to doing any time soon :P

It's the same reason you might use a program like Better Terminal Emulator without buying the PRO version. It's free, and it's nothing to scoff at even without some of the full-version features (which we can't implement without OEM support anyway). As for feedback, I'd say either because you like doing that kind of thing (heck, that's why you signed on for a beta, right?), or because the more feedback we get, the better we know how to steer this slightly sluggish ship towards the things you, our users, want! :)