Red Hat Software Collections now GA!

We've had so much interest in Red Hat Software Collections during beta testing and now here they are!

Red Hat has announced the general availability of Red Hat Software Collections 1.0!

"Available via select Red Hat Enterprise Linux subscriptions, Red Hat Software Collections delivers the newest, most stable versions of open source runtime components to subscribers on a lifecycle that is separate from Red Hat Enterprise Linux. By providing a more frequent release cadence of these developer oriented technologies, Red Hat has responded to the need for access to rapid language and database innovation while also continuing to deliver the stability of the Red Hat Enterprise Linux platform."

So now you have two choices for selecting tools and/or databases that align with your applications' lifecycle: 1) those that are in "base" Red Hat Enterprise Linux with a 10-year lifecycle, and now 2), those in Red Hat Software Collections with major releases every approximately 18 months (minor releases @ 9 months) and a 3-year lifecycle.

Red Hat Software Collections 1.0 includes access to the latest stable versions of the following languages:

- Ruby 1.9.3, which delivers substantial performance improvements for web-based applications. This results in faster load times, improved unicode support and threading, and a large collection of ruby gems (including rails 3.2).  This includes some back-ported security patches as well.
- Python 2.7, which includes new unit test features, faster I/O, tools and back-ported features from Python 3 to make future migration easier.
- Python 3.3, which offers significant improvements in language consistency, Unicode performance, imports, and distribution of packages.
- PHP 5.4, which includes new language syntax, improved performance and reduced memory consumption, and a built-in web server in CLI mode to simplify development workflows and testing.
- Perl 5.16.3, which includes improved Unicode support, performance enhancements, new debugging options, enhanced security, and a number of new and updated modules.
- Technology Preview of node.js 0.10, which delivers an easy to use module for handling streams, better error handling with domains, and performance improvements for web application development.

Red Hat Software Collections 1.0 also includes access to the latest stable versions of the following runtime databases:

- MariaDB 5.5, which introduces an easy-to-adopt alternative for MySQL for Red Hat Enterprise Linux users. Binary compatibility allows MySQL users to drop-in MariaDB without converting data files.
- MySQL 5.5, which offers performance, scalability, and usability enhancements.
- PostgreSQL 9.2, which includes native JSON support, covering indexes, and significant improvements in replication, high availability and performance.

With Red Hat Software Collections, subscribers can deploy resulting applications into production with confidence as Red Hat Software Collections releases are supported for 3 years. The bits are accessible as a separate Software Collections channel (see below regarding "Do you qualify"). If you don't see the channel on your account, then have your Org Admin log into Red Hat Network (RHN) and click here.

Red Hat Software Collections are intended not just for development but also, for production use in physical, virtual, and cloud environments. Plus, over time you'll see contents of Red Hat Software Collections made available on OpenShift (look for cartridges).

For those of you familiar with Red Hat Developer Toolset (DTS) (V2.0 is now available), note that DTS is for gcc developers and is available in RHEL Developer Subscriptions only. RHSCL are available in Developer Subscriptions, but a lot of regular production subscriptions as well because the runtimes need to be deployed with your application.

FOR MORE INFO:

Technical Documentation: See the Red Hat Enterprise Linux Developer Guide, Red Hat Software Collections chapter.

Access the bits: If you don't see the Red Hat Software Collection channels from your existing Red Hat subscription, log into Red Hat Network (RHN) and click here.

Do you qualify? To verify if you have a qualifying subscription for Red Hat Software Collections access, visit here.

Great articles! In case you've missed any of the recent technical Software Collections- related articles on this site, see them here.

Still more resources - see the product page.

QUESTION: What would you like to see in the next release? Comment on this article with your suggestions