title: What is a production release of CUDA toolkit?
body: <p>Earlier NVIDIA used to use the word <strong>Release Candidate (RC)</strong> for what was essentially a Beta release of the CUDA toolkit. A proper final release would follow pretty quickly in a month or two.</p>
  
  <p>Now, CUDA 5.0 has been available as a <strong>Production Release</strong> for 4 months now. The long duration of its stay is leading me to wonder what Production Release means? Is the PR a stable release of CUDA 5.0 or will there be a later release of CUDA 5.0?</p>