In
software development
Software development is the process of conceiving, specifying, designing, programming, documenting, testing, and bug fixing involved in creating and maintaining applications, frameworks, or other software components. Software development invol ...
, downstream refers to a direction away from the
original authors or
maintainers of
software
Software is a set of computer programs and associated documentation and data. This is in contrast to hardware, from which the system is built and which actually performs the work.
At the lowest programming level, executable code consists ...
that is distributed as
source code
In computing, source code, or simply code, is any collection of code, with or without comments, written using a human-readable programming language, usually as plain text. The source code of a program is specially designed to facilitate the wo ...
, and is a qualification of a
patch
Patch or Patches may refer to:
Arts, entertainment and media
* Patch Johnson, a fictional character from ''Days of Our Lives''
* Patch (''My Little Pony''), a toy
* "Patches" (Dickey Lee song), 1962
* "Patches" (Chairmen of the Board song) ...
. 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 ident ...
.
For contrast, see
Upstream (software development)
In software development, when software has been forked or uses a chain of libraries/ dependencies, upstream refers to an issue that occurs in software farther up the chain. It is the direction that is toward the original authors or maintainers o ...
, code sent toward the original development team.
See also
*
Upstream (software development)
In software development, when software has been forked or uses a chain of libraries/ dependencies, upstream refers to an issue that occurs in software farther up the chain. It is the direction that is toward the original authors or maintainers o ...
*
Backporting
Backporting is the action of taking parts from a newer version of a software system or software component and porting them to an older version of the same software. It forms part of the maintenance step in a software development process, and it ...
*
Waterfall software development
The waterfall model is a breakdown of project activities into linear sequential phases, meaning they are passed down onto each other, where each phase depends on the deliverables of the previous one and corresponds to a specialization of tasks. ...
*
Fork (software development)
In software engineering, a project fork happens when developers take a copy of source code from one software package and start independent development on it, creating a distinct and separate piece of software. The term often implies not merely ...
References
Computing terminology
Software project management
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