Ansible 4.9.0 has been released

[David Moreau Simard]

Hi all,

We're happy to announce that the ansible-4.9.0 package has been
released to PyPi:
https://pypi.org/project/ansible/4.9.0/

This new version contains bug fixes as well as new, backwards
compatible features in the Ansible collections that are included in
the package.

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==4.9.0 --user
```

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

* Ansible 4.9.0:
https://pypi.python.org/packages/source/a/ansible/ansible-4.9.0.tar.gz
* SHA256: e8768deafd08da710de4aee518ec7f84d270faf64a9e71e63239b23c14806ba7

What's new in Ansible 4.9.0
---------------------------

* Collections which have opted into being a part of the Ansible-4
unified changelog will have an entry on this page:
https://github.com/ansible-community/ansible-build-data/blob/main/4/CHANGELOG-v4.rst#v4-9-0

* For collections which have not opted into the unified changelog, you
may find more information on https://galaxy.ansible.com or their
source repository.
For example, the community.crypto collection would be found at
https://galaxy.ansible.com/community/crypto and you can find a link to
the source repository under the "Repo" button at the top right.

* The changelog for ansible-core 2.11.6 installed by this release of
ansible is available here:
https://github.com/ansible/ansible/blob/stable-2.11/changelogs/CHANGELOG-v2.11.rst

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

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

What's the schedule for new Ansible releases after 4.9.0?
---------------------------------------------------------

* Except for ansible-2.9.x, older versions of ansible are no longer
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

* Maintenance releases of ansible-4.x will occur roughly every three
weeks until the release of ansible-5.0.0.

* The last expected release of Ansible 4.x will be 4.10 around
December 14th 2021.

* ansible-5.0.0 is planned to be released on 2021-11-30 and will
include the latest major versions of every included Ansible collection
as well as ansible-core 2.12.x.

Thank you from the Ansible Community and happy automating !