software development Software development is the process of designing and Implementation, implementing a software solution to Computer user satisfaction, satisfy a User (computing), user. The process is more encompassing than Computer programming, programming, wri ...

, downstream refers to a direction away from the original authors or maintainers of software that is distributed as

source code In computing, source code, or simply code or source, is a plain text computer program written in a programming language. A programmer writes the human readable source code to control the behavior of a computer. Since a computer, at base, only ...

, and is a qualification of a patch. For example, a patch ''sent downstream'' is offered to the developers or maintainers of a forked software project. If accepted, the developers or maintainers will include the patch in their software fork, either immediately or in a future

release Release may refer to: * Art release, the public distribution of an artistic production, such as a film, album, or song * Legal release, a legal instrument * News release, a communication directed at the news media * Release (ISUP), a code to i ...

. Sometimes, "downstream" is used in contexts in which the developer does not have control, perhaps due to its inclusion as part other software or as part of a system. For contrast, upstream refers to code sent toward the original development team.

References

Computing terminology Software project management {{compu-prog-stub

See also

References