Downstream (software development)

In software development, downstream refers to a direction away from the original authors or maintainers of software that is distributed as source code, and is a qualification of a patch. For example, a patch sent downstream is offered to the developers or maintainers of a forked software project. If accepted, the developers or maintainers will include the patch in their software fork, either immediately or in a future release.

For contrast, see Upstream (software development), code sent toward the original development team.