Perpetual beta is the keeping of

software Software consists of computer programs that instruct the Execution (computing), execution of a computer. Software also includes design documents and specifications. The history of software is closely tied to the development of digital comput ...

or a

system A system is a group of interacting or interrelated elements that act according to a set of rules to form a unified whole. A system, surrounded and influenced by its open system (systems theory), environment, is described by its boundaries, str ...

at the

beta Beta (, ; uppercase , lowercase , or cursive ; or ) is the second letter of the Greek alphabet. In the system of Greek numerals, it has a value of 2. In Ancient Greek, beta represented the voiced bilabial plosive . In Modern Greek, it represe ...

development stage for an extended or indefinite period of time. It is often used by developers when they continue to release new features that might not be fully tested. Perpetual beta software is not recommended for mission critical machines. However, many operational systems find this to be a much more rapid and agile approach to development, staging, and deployment.

Definition

Perpetual beta has come to be associated with the development and release of a service in which constant updates are the foundation for the habitability or usability of a service. According to publisher and

open source Open source is source code that is made freely available for possible modification and redistribution. Products include permission to use and view the source code, design documents, or content of the product. The open source model is a decentrali ...

advocate Tim O'Reilly:

Users must be treated as co-developers, in a reflection of open source development practices (even if the software in question is unlikely to be released under an open source license.) The open source dictum, " release early and release often", in fact has morphed into an even more radical position, "the perpetual beta", in which the product is developed in the open, with new features slipstreamed in on a monthly, weekly, or even daily basis. It's no accident that services such as
Gmail Gmail is the email service provided by Google. it had 1.5 billion active user (computing), users worldwide, making it the largest email service in the world. It also provides a webmail interface, accessible through a web browser, and is also ...
,
Google Maps Google Maps is a web mapping platform and consumer application offered by Google. It offers satellite imagery, aerial photography, street maps, 360° interactive panorama, interactive panoramic views of streets (Google Street View, Street View ...
,
Flickr Flickr ( ) is an image hosting service, image and Online video platform, video hosting service, as well as an online community, founded in Canada and headquartered in the United States. It was created by Ludicorp in 2004 and was previously a co ...
, del.icio.us, and the like may be expected to bear a "Beta" logo for years at a time.

Used in the larger conversation of what defines Web 2.0, O'Reilly described the concept of perpetual beta as part of a customized Internet environment with these applications as distinguishing characteristics:

* Services, not packaged software, with cost-effective scalability. * Control over unique, hard-to-recreate data sources that get richer as more people use them. * Trusting users as co-developers. * Harnessing collective intelligence. * Leveraging the
long tail In statistics and business, a long tail of some distributions of numbers is the portion of the distribution having many occurrences far from the "head" or central part of the distribution. The distribution could involve popularities, random n ...
through customer self-service. * Software above the level of a single device. * Lightweight user interfaces, development models, and business models.

However, the Internet and the development of open source programs have changed the role of the end user. Instead of a finished product, many programs are developed as SaaS, and provided as network services, along with regular updates. Even software provided locally is often updated after release. The perpetual beta is the extreme case of this where the released software is unfinished, rather than simply being updated after release. This is also referred to as the "banana principle", a reference to the way bananas are picked before they are ripe.Tim O’Reilly
''What is Web 2.0?''
Kapitel 4/2: ''End of the Software Release Cycle''.

References

Web 2.0 neologisms Software release {{Software-type-stub

Definition

See also

References