For those of you anxious to try out Foundations: Gorre, the European test server is currently open for public testing, albeit in French (an English test will come later). I'd only recommend it to people with a fair amount of general computer knowledge..

To play, first make a copy of your DAoC directory and download and install the Foundations expansion to that directory (Classic / SI)

You're not done yet, now you need to patch the client to the French 1.63 version.
First, you'll need to patch to the French 1.62 due to a problem with the patch server :(
Unpack this ZIP archive into the directory, the run camelot.exe and let it patch.
Then unpack the update.dat that patches to the 1.63 version from this archive and patch again by running camelot.exe

After all this, you should be able to log in normally, just make sure you select Gorre on the server selection. And look out and talk to the red floating gem thingies marked Gold & Glory :)

Useful links:
Official Foundations documentation (some of it applies only to a slightly newer version of Foundations)
European Foundations mini-site
The official (French) news article about the open beta test
Update: English news article about the open beta test