Dates worth knowing: upcoming ansible-2.8, ansible-2.9, ansible-base, ansible-core schedule

[Rick Elrod]

Hi all,

I wanted to make sure everyone was aware of our plan for ansible < 2.10, and the
next few ansible-base and ansible-core releases.

On 26 April 2021, several things are slated to happen:

* ansible-core 2.11.0 will see a general availability release
* ansible 2.8.z will be considered End Of Life and will no longer see
updates
* ansible 2.9.z will drop to security-only releases

This means that as of today, there is only one more full release cycle for
ansible 2.9.z to receive bugfix backports.

Additionally, several upcoming releases will fall outside of the normal release
cadence, in an effort to align ansible 2.9, ansible-base, and ansible-core
release dates in the future.

To be more specific, please note the following dates (subject to minor change)
which outline planned releases over the next several weeks:

* 8 March 2021
- (no ansible 2.8 release this cycle due to no changes)
- ansible 2.9.19rc1 release
- ansible-base 2.10.7rc1 release

* 15 March 2021 (+1 week)
- ansible 2.9.19 GA release
- ansible-base 2.10.7 GA release
- ansible-core 2.11.0b2 release

* 29 March 2021 (+2 weeks)
- ansible-core 2.11.0rc1 release (create stable-2.11 branch)

* 5 April 2021 (+1 week)
- ansible 2.8.20rc1 release (final 2.8 security RC!)
- ansible 2.9.20rc1 release (final 2.9 bugfix RC!)
- ansible-base 2.10.8rc1 release

* 12 April 2021 (+1 week)
- ansible 2.8.20 GA release (final 2.8 security release!)
- ansible 2.9.20 GA release (final 2.9 bugfix release!)
- ansible-base 2.10.8 GA release
- ansible-core 2.11.0rc2 (if necessary, TBD)

* 26 April 2021 (+2 weeks)
- ansible-core 2.11.0 GA release
One week earlier than usual:
- ansible 2.9.21rc1 release (first 2.9 security-only RC)
- ansible-base 2.10.9rc1 release

* 3 May 2021 (+1 week)
- ansible 2.9.21 GA release
- ansible-base 2.10.9 GA release

* 17 May 2021 (+2 weeks)
- ansible-core 2.11.1rc1 release
One week earlier than usual:
- ansible 2.9.22rc1 release
- ansible-base 2.10.10rc1 release

* 24 May 2021 (+1 week)
- GA releases of the above, normal cadence picks up here.

(Note that 2.8 releases might be skipped if there are no user-impacting security
enhancements.)

I know this is a lot of information, but I wanted to get it out there
just so everyone can plan accordingly. These dates are subject to
minor change, but should provide a good estimate.

Happy automating!

Rick
Ansible Release Engineering