Reeling in a release

Like a marlin on the line, leaping and thrashing about in the ocean with a painful hook in its mouth, a software release does have a life of its own. It fights you. It does not willingly allow itself to be taken from the freedom of development into the captivity of customer hands. You have to strap down the exhausted developers in their swivel chairs, apply sunblock, cheese doodles and Dr. Pepper and follow that feisty fish until it is finally landed.

There's always the possibility that either the line or the developers will snap, too.

Once you capture a software release, the magnificent creature must be quickly released again into the deep, relatively safe, shark infested, water of continued enhancements.