1. Overview

RERO is an acronym that stands for "Release Early, Release Often."(1) This phrase was first used by Eric S. Raymond in his work "The Cathedral and the Bazaar,"(2) a significant piece of literature being written during the free software revolution. In his work, the phrase is used to describe the benefits of Linus Torvalds' open development process for the Linux kernel. RERO was written as a means of accomplishing the same or similar aspects of this innovation in a way that is consistent with current development patterns while also acting as a general release manager.

Automation is another critical aspect that RERO attempts to implement. If it is possible to characterize when a release should be made, then RERO should be able to make a release at that point in time without developer intervention. Knowing whether software is stable is a different problem that RERO does not address. It only addresses whether a release can be made. This is important to consider if one desires to use RERO as a metric for software improvement.

It is quite possible that many do not see the advantages RERO has to offer over current solutions. For example, when using the GNU Autotools, it is very easy to create and distribute a release. Indeed, just using basic aspects of Unix in general allow for release automation to be accomplished after some effort. What RERO tries to do is provide a basis for those models for consistency across projects with the perspectives of automation and process improvement in mind. Is it really necessary for minor releases to be done by hand? Is it possible to make a release of software based on how stable it appears to be? These issues, along with providing a tool for formally addressing release management, are the goals of RERO.

See the "Details" chapter for information on how RERO is designed to meet those goals See section 3. Details.