Release announcement : Ansible Community Package 8.0.0b1 (Feature Freeze)

[Anwesha Das]

Hello everyone,

We're happy to announce the release of the Ansible 8.0.0b1 package!

Ansible 8.0.0b1 includes ansible-core 2.15.0 as well as a curated set of
Ansible collections that provide a vast number of modules and plugins.

This is a `Feature Freeze`. No new modules or major features accepted after today. In practice, this means we will freeze the semver collection versions to compatible release versions. For example, if the version of community.crypto on this date was community.crypto 2.3.0; Ansible-8.0.0 could ship with community.crypto 2.3.1. It would not ship with community.crypto 2.4.0.

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

This pre-release is available on PyPI and can be installed with pip:

`$ python3 -m pip install ansible==8.0.0b1 --user`

The sources for this release can be found here:

Release tarball:
https://files.pythonhosted.org/packages/21/26/2b317a434ee561bf9495c7c7b461c2773ab6f7d0c427a19e2538592770af/ansible-8.0.0b1.tar.gz

SHA256:
6094edf9aa78150b8e0204b290b32b1124ca31eec5083fbf21c50e6d9c62a517

Wheel package:
https://files.pythonhosted.org/packages/9a/b6/05158b2b09d80e17b3fe5701de08fa69a645d615018afa179f152c51b2e2/ansible-8.0.0b1-py3-none-any.whl

SHA256:
7070136920ff0cbb0453a8b35edb3f9c39223a6fcd9a6bf0c9ec70ec83f69727


What's new in Ansible 8
-----------------------

This is an Alpha release of a major version.

Collections added to Ansible 8:
* dellemc.powerflex (version 1.6.0)
* dellemc.unity (version 1.6.0)
* grafana.grafana (version 2.0.0)
* microsoft.ad (version 1.0.0)
* servicenow.servicenow (version 1.0.6)

Collections removed from Ansible 8:
* dellemc.os10 (previously included version: 1.1.1)
* dellemc.os6 (previously included version: 1.0.7)
* dellemc.os9 (previously included version: 1.0.4)
* mellanox.onyx (previously included version: 1.0.0)

The full changelog can be found here:

https://github.com/ansible-community/ansible-build-data/blob/main/8/CHANGELOG-v8.rst


What's the schedule for new Ansible releases after 8.0.0b1?
---------------------------------------------------------

View the Roadmap for Ansible project 8.0 here:

https://docs.ansible.com/ansible/devel/roadmap/COLLECTIONS_8.html

Subscribe to the Bullhorn for all future release dates, announcements,
and Ansible community contributor news at:

https://bit.ly/subscribe-bullhorn

You can find all past Bullhorn issues on the official wiki page:
https://github.com/ansible/community/wiki/News#the-bullhorn

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

A unified porting guide for collections that have opted-in is available here:
https://docs.ansible.com/ansible/devel/porting_guides/porting_guide_8.html

Getting collection updates from Ansible 8 with older releases of ansible-core
--------------------------------------

Ansible 8 includes ansible-core 2.15.x. Based on your requirements,
you can get collection updates as they ship in the Ansible "batteries
included" package while continuing to use older versions of
ansible-core.

An ansible-galaxy requirements file based on the collections from
Ansible 8 has been made available for this use case:
https://github.com/ansible-community/ansible-build-data/blob/main/8/galaxy-requirements.yaml

After you download the requirements file, the collections can be
installed by running this command:

"ansible-galaxy collection install -r galaxy-requirements.yaml"

On behalf of the Ansible community, thank you and happy automating!

Cheers,
Ansible Community Team