Maintenance release
Fran
A maintenance release (also minor release or Maintenance Pack or MP) is a release of a product that does not add new features or content. For instance, in computer software, maintenance releases are typically intended to solve minor problems, typically "bugs" or security issues. Google, for instance, planned to halve its maintenance release times, to biweekly, commencing September 8, 2026, to enhance enterprise user security.
01Example of minor version numbering
The somewhat unusual version number "3.0.5a" was used for a minor release of KDE due to a lack of version numbers. Work on KDE 3.1 had already started and, up to that day, the release coordinator used version numbers such as 3.0.5, 3.0.6 internally in the main CVS repository to mark snapshots of the upcoming 3.1. Then, after 3.0.3, a number of important and unexpected bug fixes (starting from 3.0.4) suddenly became necessary, leading to a conflict, since 3.0.5 was, at this time, already in use. More recent KDE release cycles have tagged pre-release snapshots with large revision numbers, such as 3.1.95, to avoid such conflicts.
Sources and credits
This article is adapted from the Wikipedia article “Maintenance release”, written by its contributors and licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Fathomly has changed the layout, removed citation markers, navigation and maintenance notices, and adjusted punctuation. This adapted version is shared under the same license. For references, see the original article.
Fathomly is not affiliated with or endorsed by the Wikimedia Foundation. Spotted a problem? Tell us.
