SQLA will probably go live sometime in 2010, possibly before the US midterm elections (what, isn't EVERYONE waiting to see what happens on November 2? :)

Here are some points to consider:

• SQLA will not go live until after the underlying StackExchange software goes live.

• According to http://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/3176/whats-coming-in-beta-6 Beta 6 of StackExchange will start in January 2010, and there will be a Beta 7 after that.

• According to http://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/2993/whats-new-in-beta-5 Beta 5 went live November 30, 2009 so it looks like each Beta period lasts one month... extrapolate wildly, and Beta 7 won't end until March 2010.

...and maybe there will be a Beta 8, who knows?

• There are a lot of little bugs in the underlying software, you've probably seen them and been just as irritated by them as I have. Feel free to report them on http://meta.stackexchange.com/, but if you do, you'll probably see they've already been discussed... which is why I don't bother sweating the small stuff.

• There are quite a few features that are "stubbed out" (not yet implemented) in the administration areas "admin", "mod" and "tools". The big one, IMO, is called "Download Your StackExchange Database". That's huge. SQLA will never go live without that one.

Not ever.

Allow me to elaborate: The creator of StackExchange just lost his entire blog because he didn't take responsibility for backing up his own data. SQLA is not my data, it is your data. It's one thing for Jeff Atwood to be careless with his own data, that's his problem. It would be an entirely different matter for me to take the same risks with your data. I don't care how safe the Fog Creek infrastructure is... blah blah blah cloud computing blah blah blah.

Until there is a reasonably convenient and absolutely reliable way for me to back up SQLA content, this site ain't ever going live.

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Here's what I really think: The backup problem will go away long before StackExchange goes live, and we'll be able to "pump up the volume" (invite more participation) sometime in January or February.

That will happen before SQLA goes "live"... it will still say "govern yourself accordingly", but it'll be a lot more fun!