How our product lifecycle works

At Good Little Machines, we go out of our way to make sure that all our users know exactly what state our products are in before deciding to use them. Our goal is to make sure that everyone is informed about exactly what they are getting into, especially because we make an effort to release our good little machines early and often so you can try them out early and help shape your favorite products.

Our projects have four distinct statuses: workshop, field test, in service, and archived.

Workshop

When a project is in the "workshop" phase, we are actively working on building it out. More often than not, this project has either not been released at all to users or is in an unstable, alpha phase. Our open source projects in the workshop phase are often still undergoing fundamental, breaking changes. If a project is available in the workshop phase, you are more than welcome to use it, but understand that there may be a number of breaking changes before it reaches the next phase: field test.

Field test

Projects in the field test phase are being actively used by our beta users and have mostly moved past any breaking changes. We like to field test our products early and often because you, the users, should have ample time to provide feedback about what you like, what you don't like, and what you would like to see changed.

Depending on the project, our field tests can be either open to the general public or closed to a specific group of people. In the event that we plan a closed field test, we will open up an interest form so that you can make sure you get in and can try out the newest products we have to offer.

In service

Once we've ironed out any final updates and taken in all outstanding feedback, we move our products to in service. Once something is in service, it is generally available to the target audience. From here, we continue innovating and iterating, but the product will remain stable from here on out.

Archived

Sometimes, even the best products run their course and it's time to wind them down. In this case, we give our product an "archived" status. We want to continue to honor the product and make sure that any field notes created about the project throughout its lifetime are persisted for others to see and learn from.