Ansible 4.0.0 final has been released!

[Toshio Kuratomi]

Hi all,

We're happy to announce that the ansible-4.0.0 package is now
available! This update is based on the ansible-core-2.11.x package
which is a major update from the one used by Ansible 3. Ansible 3 was
based on Ansible Base 2.10.x. There may be backwards incompatibilities
in the core playbook language. Please see the porting guide for
details.


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

Due to a limitation in pip, if you are upgrading from Ansible 3 (or
earlier), you need to uninstall Ansible and Ansible Base before
installing Ansible 4:

```
$ pip uninstall ansible ansible-base
$ pip install ansible==4.0.0 --user
```

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

* Ansible 4.0.0:
https://pypi.python.org/packages/source/a/ansible/ansible-4.0.0.tar.gz
SHA256: 6f67ca5c634e4721d1f8e206dc71d60d1a114d147945355bfc902bd37eb07080

What's new in Ansible 4.0.0
---------------------------

* This version of Ansible is based on Ansible Core 2.11 which is a new
major update of the ansible-core package. It may contain backwards
incompatible changes to the playbook language and command line
programs. Please see the porting guide (linked at the bottom) for
more information.

* We've added a way to get the version of the Ansible package that is
installed programmatically:

```
$ python -c 'from ansible_collections.ansible_release import
ansible_version; print(ansible_version)'
4.0.0
```

* Collections which have opted into being a part of the Ansible 4.0.0
unified changelog will have an entry on this page:
* https://github.com/ansible-community/ansible-build-data/blob/main/4/CHANGELOG-v4.rst

* 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/4/ansible-4.0.0.deps

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

* The changelog for Ansible Core 2.11, which this release of ansible
installs, is located here:
https://github.com/ansible/ansible/blob/stable-2.11/changelogs/CHANGELOG-v2.11.rst


What's the schedule for new Ansible releases after 4.0.0?
---------------------------------------------------------

* New minor releases will occur approximately every three weeks
(Ansible 4.1.0, Ansible 4.2.0, etc). They will contain bugfixes and
new features but no backwards incompatibilities.

* Now that Ansible 4 has been released, updates to Ansible 3 will stop.
* We've been putting together a document on issues that would need
to be addressed if someone would like to volunteer to create long term
updates to Ansible 3: https://hackmd.io/plQlGzcFRFGLnPXIeg3cwQ

* In case you missed the shift in version numbers and split of the
Ansible Core and Ansible packages that have been taking place over the
past year, here are some blog posts explaining the changes that
culminated in the Ansible 3 release:
* https://www.ansible.com/blog/announcing-the-community-ansible-3.0.0-package
* https://www.ansible.com/blog/ansible-3.0.0-qa


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

A unified porting guide for collections which have opted-in is
available here:
https://docs.ansible.com/ansible/devel/porting_guides/porting_guide_4.html

-Toshio Kuratomi