Achieving Provisional status has several effects. It signals to potential adopters that at least two organizations have been using it, that the tool is ready for use in a controlled pilot, and that others in the community are interested in adopting the tool. All of these are important because they encourage additional real-world usage of the tool, which is a crucial step on the way to becoming a Core tool.
Provisional tools also become a part of the official Sakai release. When system administrators download Sakai, the source code for provisional tools is included. When they deploy Sakai, the provisional tools are included but hidden from end user access in a process called stealthing. A tool that has been "stealthed" is actually running, but hidden from view. An instructor creating a site cannot make this tool available to his or her end users. An administrator, on the other hand, can add it to a particular site.
Stealthing is very important to the Quality Assurance process...