I don't see how getting a unit to Luke-Jr is anything remotely like shipping.
This! Shipping means customers getting ordered retail units. I don't get whats there to debate about this.
The debate is because
the betsofbitcoin bet does not require either of those. It simply requires a non-BFL employee to post pictures to bitcointalk of a hashing unit with a hashrate within 75% of advertised rate. The bet has been technically fulfilled, except for a question on the timestamp of the post and whether the bet applies to Eastern Time or any time zone.
All of this is completely useless for indications of shipping outside of that bet, except that it does show that true shipping will happen soon, and that bfgminer will support it.
I don't agree as the word 'device' used in the bet means to me a device like the one BFL has on the pictures on their sales page. All i see in the pictures is the same prototype device.
Another thing that bugs me is that Luke was put into service by BFL a while back so he could work on their product. During this time he stayed in a hotel. If the money for the hotel was payed out of BFLs pocket i see this as a compensation for his involvement with the product and that would make him a BFL employee by my definition.