Is "releasing when it's ready" basically what was done in the past for e.g. CD-distributed software? I imagine that could work well in some cases, but it also

Is "releasing when it's ready" basically what was done in the past for e.g. CD-distributed software? I imagine that could work well in some cases, but it also allows corporate bureaucracy and/or marketing teams to determine when things get released at larger scales and that might not be so ideal.