relax! it’s just 0s and 1s

 When I started with the terms, I was a bit confused on the order/meaning of the following in the software release life cycle: alpha, beta, gamma, CTP, RTM, RTW, RC, GA, Gold, Box Copy etc…

I decided to get clear on these terms with the help of my friend, Wiki. So completely based on it, here is the quick summary of the release cycle stages, their order and meaning..

1. Pre-Alpha: Not feature complete, refers to all activities prior to Software Testing. e.g. Milestone versions, Nightly builds etc
2. Alpha: Build delivered to the internal Software Testers for testing.
3. Beta: (also known as Preview, Prototype, Technical Preview or Community Technical Preview Release stage): Build which has passed alpha testing and has been released to external customers/prospective customers (acting as free beta testers) for external feedback/improvements.
4. Release Candidate (RC): (also known as Golden Master, Gamma, Delta, Omega, Zenith etc): A code complete version with potential to be a final product, with no fatal bugs/showstoppers.
5. Gold (also known as General Availability Release GA): Production or Live version of a particular product. ready for distribution.
6. Release To Manufacturing (RTM): Used when the Gold version is sent to a product manufacturer for physical distribution (CDs, DVDs etc) Box Copy is the term used for this physically created version of the product.
7. Release To Web (RTW): If the RTM distribution is online, RTM is called as RTW.

Always good to know the terms once, and be clear forever.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_release_life_cycle

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