New release: ansible-base 2.10.0

[Rick Elrod]

Hi all- we're happy to announce that the new ansible-base 2.10 package
is now available! The ansible-base package consists of only the Ansible
execution engine, related tools (e.g. ansible-galaxy, ansible-test),
and a very small set of built-in plugins.

The ansible-base package is the culmination of several years of
effort to decouple Ansible engine releases from Ansible content
releases, by splitting most module and plugin content from the core
Ansible repositories and distribution into Ansible Collections. The
collections can be released on independent timelines, driven by
the needs of their constituent communities. This decoupled model
allows content creators to develop against more purpose-built Ansible
environments, by starting with just the ansible-base package and using
ansible-galaxy to install and maintain only the collections needed by
their automation. For users that prefer a batteries-included model,
the "ansible" package in most distribution channels will be updated in
the coming weeks to a curated snapshot of collections that depends on
the ansible-base package. This will provide a one-stop installation
experience, similar to all previous versions of Ansible, and should
allow previously-built Ansible content to run unmodified. The release
schedule for the Ansible community distribution can be found at
https://docs.ansible.com/ansible/devel/roadmap/COLLECTIONS_2_10.html#release-schedule


How to get it
-------------

$ pip install ansible-base==2.10.0 --user

The tar.gz of the release can be found here:

* ansible-base 2.10.0
https://pypi.python.org/packages/source/a/ansible-base/ansible-base-2.10.0.tar.gz
SHA256: 9d015bc042c9547adc68e7863359fe7a2eb764e7fb02dc50514c65ca6b8c08d9


What's new in ansible-base 2.10.0
---------------------------------

In addition to numerous bugfixes, most new Ansible engine features in this
release enhance Ansible's support for external plugins via collections. They
include:

* Collection declaration of supported/tested Ansible versions
* Transparent redirection of plugins formerly included in Ansible to their
destination collections
* Installation of collections from git repositories
* Various enhancements of test tooling

These features support our goal of allowing Ansible content that was written for
previous versions of Ansible to run unmodified under 2.10, once the necessary
collections are installed.


The full changelog is at:

* 2.10.0
https://github.com/ansible/ansible/blob/stable-2.10/changelogs/CHANGELOG-v2.10.rst


What's the schedule for future maintenance releases?
----------------------------------------------------

Future maintenance releases will occur approximately every 4 weeks.


Porting Help
------------

We've published a porting guide at
https://docs.ansible.com/ansible/devel/porting_guides/porting_guide_2.10.html
to help migrate your content to 2.10.



Thanks!

-Rick Elrod