Golden master
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In hardware and software development, a golden master is the reference model from which copies are mass-produced. An analogy is made to the production of certain types of physical media. In that process, a mold is cast in gold, from which subsequent copies are derived.
The golden master is usually the release to manufacturing (RTM) version, and therefore the first public/commercial version. It represents the development stage of "RTM" (Release To Manufacturing). Reaching this stage is said to be "going gold", or "gone golden."
[edit] History
Apple Inc. has used the term in a document, first written in April 1988, describing its software versioning system.
The term is often confused with "gold master" which refers to a physical recording entity such as that sent to a manufacturing plant. Apple Inc. used the term in a press release written in March 2001 to describe the sending of a physical gold master disc to manufacturing.
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- Version Territory - Apple Inc. 1988-04-01.
- Mac OS X 'Gold Master' Released To Manufacturing - Apple Inc. 2001-03-07.
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