Ansible 7.0.0b1 has been released!

[Christian Adams]

Hi all,

We're happy to announce that the Ansible 7.0.0b1 package has been released!

Ansible 7.0.0b1 will include ansible-core 2.14.0 as well as a curated set of
Ansible collections to provide a vast number of modules and plugins.

This is a major version update from Ansible 6.x which included
ansible-core 2.13 and there may be backwards incompatibilities in the
core playbook language.

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

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

```
$ pip install ansible==7.0.0b1 --user
```

The sources for this release can be found here:

Release tarball:
https://pypi.python.org/packages/source/a/ansible/ansible-7.0.0b1.tar.gz
SHA256: f665e35f381f4e1cd600e2ad70d7a7bb3949340114030940460fc4e249f9b0e7

Wheel package: https://files.pythonhosted.org/packages/py3/a/ansible/ansible-7.0.0b1-py3-none-any.whl
SHA256: 11f812a1c46a7ab4e298ceed25cc2c47d0ed23b6b972a9f6f3e2661b6d762f85

What's new in Ansible 7
---------------------------

Ansible 7 requires Python 3.9 on the controller, same as ansible-core 2.14.

Variables are now evaluated lazily; only when they are actually used. For example, in ansible-core 2.14 an expression ``{{ defined_variable or undefined_variable }}`` does not fail on ``undefined_variable`` if the first part of ``or`` is evaluated to ``True`` as it is not needed to evaluate the second part.

Collections added to Ansible 7:
* ibm.spectrum_virtualize (version 1.9.0)
* inspur.ispim (version 1.0.1)
* purestorage.fusion (version 1.1.1)
* vultr.cloud (version 1.1.0)


The previously deprecated servicenow.servicenow collection has been removed.

NOTE: Read the full Ansible 7 porting guide at https://github.com/ansible/ansible/blob/devel/docs/docsite/rst/porting_guides/porting_guide_7.rst for complete details.

* The changelog for ansible-core 2.14 installed by this release of
ansible is available here:
https://github.com/ansible/ansible/blob/stable-2.14/changelogs/CHANGELOG-v2.14.rst

* Collections which have opted into being a part of the Ansible-7
unified changelog will have an entry on this page:
https://github.com/ansible-community/ansible-build-data/blob/main/7/CHANGELOG-v7.rst

* 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.

What's the schedule for new Ansible releases after 7.0.0b1 ?
---------------------------------------------------------

* Please refer to the Ansible Project 7.0 Roadmap for more information about the upcoming
releases:
https://docs.ansible.com/ansible/devel/roadmap/COLLECTIONS_7.html


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_7.html

Getting collection updates from Ansible 7 with older releases of ansible-core
-----------------------------------------------------------------

Ansible 6 includes ansible-core 2.13.x and users have expressed an interest
in getting collection updates as they ship in the Ansible "batteries
included" package while keeping an older version of ansible-core based
on their needs and requirements.

An ansible-galaxy requirements file based on the collections from
Ansible 7 has been made available for this use case:
https://github.com/ansible-community/ansible-build-data/blob/main/7/galaxy-requirements.yaml

Once the requirements file has been downloaded, the collections can be
installed by running:
"ansible-galaxy collection install -r galaxy-requirements.yaml"

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