Software lifecycle

Software lifecycle refers to the progressive stages that software goes through from its initial creation to its end of use.

Stages

1. Development - During initial programming the software is generally considered unstable and untested. For larger projects development may be broken into multiple milestones, often based on feature sets.
   1. Snapshots
2. Pre-release - Before the official release of a finished product
   1. Alpha - Almost feature complete and ready for initial feedback from users
   2. Beta - Feature complete and ready for testing
   3. Release candidate - Final testing versions before release
3. Gold, General Availability (GA), or Launch - Finished product officially released to end users
4. Maintenance - Most often the longest phase, bugs are fixed and features might be added post-launch
5. End-of-life - End of support