Ansible-3.4.0 released

[Toshio Kuratomi]

Hi all,

We're happy to announce that the ansible-3.4.0 package has been
released! The update contains bugfixes and new, backwards compatible
features in the contained collections.

If you would like to learn about how and why we got to version 3.0.0,
we invite you to visit our blog for the background as well as a Q&A:

- https://www.ansible.com/blog/announcing-the-community-ansible-3.0.0-package
- https://www.ansible.com/blog/ansible-3.0.0-qa

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

Due to a limitation in pip, if you are upgrading from Ansible 2.9 (or
earlier), you need to uninstall ansible before installing the 3.x
version:

```
$ pip uninstall ansible
$ pip install ansible==3.4.0 --user
```

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

* Ansible 3.4.0
https://pypi.python.org/packages/source/a/ansible/ansible-3.4.0.tar.gz
SHA256: ca34e2c0c3f92cad5e528c94c133e620845feb11cc62f42e98d28271fe5bd924

What's new in Ansible 3.4.0
---------------------------

* The Ansible package has moved to semantic versioning
(https://semver.org/). This standard allows you to tell if a new
version of Ansible contains incompatibilities by looking at the
version number. We've moved from 3.3.0 to 3.4.0 to show that this
release should be backwards compatible with Ansible-3.3.0 but may
contain new features. Read the semver specification for more
information.

* Collections which have opted into being a part of the Ansible-3
unified changelog will have an entry on this page:
* https://github.com/ansible-community/ansible-build-data/blob/main/3/CHANGELOG-v3.rst#v3-4-0

* For collections which have not opted into the unified changelog,
consult the list of included collections in the link below and check
their entry on https://galaxy.ansible.com for information about their
changes.
* https://github.com/ansible-community/ansible-build-data/blob/main/3/ansible-3.4.0.deps

* You can find more information for those on
https://galaxy.ansible.com/. For instance, the community.crypto
collection listed in the ansible-3.4.0.deps file has a galaxy page at
https://galaxy.ansible.com/community/crypto/

* Changelog for ansible-base-2.10.9 which this release of ansible
installs: https://github.com/ansible/ansible/blob/stable-2.10/changelogs/CHANGELOG-v2.10.rst

What's the schedule for new Ansible releases after 3.4.0?
---------------------------------------------------------

* Except for ansible-2.9.x, older versions of ansible are not seeing
maintenance releases. If there is a desire for maintenance releases
of older versions, drop by a Community Working Group Meeting to
discuss how you can help. (
https://github.com/ansible/community/tree/main/meetings#wednesdays )

* We're currently planning to release Ansible-4.0.0 next week, on May
18, 2021. When this release happens, we will no longer be providing
updates of the Ansible-3 package. See the Ansible 4 Roadmap for
details: https://docs.ansible.com/ansible/devel/roadmap/COLLECTIONS_4.html

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

There's a unified porting guide for collections which have opted-in.
You can find that at:
https://docs.ansible.com/ansible/devel/porting_guides/porting_guide_3.html

-Toshio