Perpetual beta is the keeping 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 ...

or a

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

at the

beta Beta (, ; uppercase , lowercase , or cursive ; grc, βῆτα, bē̂ta or ell, βήτα, víta) is the second letter of the Greek alphabet. In the system of Greek numerals, it has a value of 2. In Modern Greek, it represents the voiced labiod ...

development stage A software release life cycle is the sum of the stages of development and maturity for a piece of computer software ranging from its initial development to its eventual release, and including updated versions of the released version to help impro ...

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 A mission critical factor of a system is any factor (component, equipment, personnel, process, procedure, software, etc.) that is essential to business operation or to an organization. Failure or disruption of mission critical factors will resu ...

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 the source code, design documents, or content of the product. The open-source model is a decentralized sof ...

advocate

Tim O'Reilly Tim O'Reilly (born 6 June 1954) is the founder of O'Reilly Media (formerly O'Reilly & Associates). He popularised the terms open source and Web 2.0. Education and early life Born in County Cork, Ireland, Tim O'Reilly moved to San Francisco, C ...

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 Release early, release often (also known as ship early, ship often, or time-based releases, and sometimes abbreviated RERO) is a software development philosophy that emphasizes the importance of early and frequent releases in creating a tight feed ...
", 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 a free email service provided by Google. As of 2019, it had 1.5 billion active users worldwide. A user typically accesses Gmail in a web browser or the official mobile app. Google also supports the use of email clients via the POP an ...
,
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 panoramic views of streets ( Street View), real-time traffic conditions, and rou ...
,
Flickr Flickr ( ; ) is an American image hosting and 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 a popular way for amateur and professional ...
,
del.icio.us Delicious (stylized del.icio.us) was a social bookmarking web service for storing, sharing, and discovering web bookmarks. The site was founded by Joshua Schachter and Peter Gadjokov in 2003 and acquired by Yahoo! in 2005. By the end of 2008, ...
, 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 Web 2.0 (also known as participative (or participatory) web and social web) refers to websites that emphasize user-generated content, ease of use, participatory culture and interoperability (i.e., compatibility with other products, systems, and ...

, 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 Collective intelligence (CI) is shared or group intelligence (GI) that emerges from the collaboration, collective efforts, and competition of many individuals and appears in consensus decision making. The term appears in sociobiology, politic ...
* Leveraging the
long tail In statistics and business, a long tail of some probability distribution, 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 involv ...
through customer self-service * Software above the level of a single device * Lightweight user interfaces, development models, and business models.

References

Web 2.0 neologisms Software release {{software-stub

Definition

See also

References