A point release is a minor release of a software project, especially one intended to fix bug

Software bug

A software bug is the common term used to describe an error, flaw, mistake, failure, or fault in a computer program or system that produces an incorrect or unexpected result, or causes it to behave in unintended ways. Most bugs arise from mistakes and errors made by people in either a program's...

s or do minor cleanups rather than add feature

Feature (software design)

The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers defines the term feature in IEEE 829 as "A distinguishing characteristic of a software item ." - Feature-rich :...

s. The term implies that such releases are relatively frequent, and is generally used with respect to open source

Open source

The term open source describes practices in production and development that promote access to the end product's source materials. Some consider open source a philosophy, others consider it a pragmatic methodology...

 projects being developed in the "bazaar model" as described in Eric S. Raymond's essay "The Cathedral and the Bazaar

The Cathedral and the Bazaar

The Cathedral and the Bazaar is an essay by Eric S. Raymond on software engineering methods, based on his observations of the Linux kernel development process and his experiences managing an open source project, fetchmail. It examines the struggle between top-down and bottom-up design...

".

With retail software

Retail software

Retail software is computer software sold to end consumers, usually under restricted licenses. Until the emergence of the Internet, retail software represented, until the 2000s, the vast majority of all end consumer software used and was referred to as shrinkware because software almost always...

, point releases are often, but not necessarily, free updates for users of the latest full version, as opposed to major releases that frequently come at some cost, albeit reduced, even for previous users.

The point refers to fact that the version number is only incremented after the decimal point, i.e. 7.0 to 7.1, or 2.3.1 to 2.3.2.

See also

• Patch (computing)
  Patch (computing)
  A patch is a piece of software designed to fix problems with, or update a computer program or its supporting data. This includes fixing security vulnerabilities and other bugs, and improving the usability or performance...
  
  
• Software versioning
• Software release life cycle
• Maintenance release
  Maintenance release
  A maintenance release is a release of a product that does not add new features or content. For instance, in computer software, maintenance releases are typically intended to solve minor problems, typically "bugs" or security issues....