Release early, release often (sometimes abbreviated RERO) is a software development philosophy that emphasizes the importance of early and frequent releases in creating a tight feedback loop between developers and testers or users. Advocates argue that this allows the software development to progress faster, enables the user to help define what the software will become, better conforms to the users' requirements for the software,
and ultimately results in higher quality software.
This philosophy was popularized by Eric S. Raymond

Eric S. Raymond

Eric Steven Raymond , often referred to as ESR, is an American computer programmer, author and open source software advocate. After the 1997 publication of The Cathedral and the Bazaar, Raymond was for a number of years frequently quoted as an unofficial spokesman for the open source movement...

 in his 1997 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...

, where Raymond stated "Release early. Release often. And listen to your customers".
This philosophy was originally applied to the development of the Linux kernel

Linux kernel

The Linux kernel is an operating system kernel used by the Linux family of Unix-like operating systems. It is one of the most prominent examples of free and open source software....

 and other open-source software

Open-source software

Open-source software is computer software that is available in source code form: the source code and certain other rights normally reserved for copyright holders are provided under a software license that permits users to study, change, improve and at times also to distribute the software.Open...

, but has also been applied to closed source, commercial software development.
Disadvantages to this release model include the possibility of more frequent crashes or even data loss, and that end-users must update their software more often.
The alternative to the release early, release often philosophy is aiming to provide only polished, bug-free releases.

See also

• Programming paradigm
  Programming paradigm
  A programming paradigm is a fundamental style of computer programming. Paradigms differ in the concepts and abstractions used to represent the elements of a program and the steps that compose a computation A programming paradigm is a fundamental style of computer programming. (Compare with a...
  
  
• Software development process
  Software development process
  A software development process, also known as a software development life cycle , is a structure imposed on the development of a software product. Similar terms include software life cycle and software process. It is often considered a subset of systems development life cycle...
  
  
• Agile Software Development
  Agile software development
  Agile software development is a group of software development methodologies based on iterative and incremental development, where requirements and solutions evolve through collaboration between self-organizing, cross-functional teams...
  
  
• Minimum viable product
  Minimum viable product
  In product development, the Minimum Viable Product or MVP is a strategy used for fast and quantitative market testing of a product or product feature, popularized by Eric Ries for web applications.- Description :...
  
  

External links

• Release Early, Release Often, chapter of The Cathedral and the Bazaar by Eric S. Raymond