Red Hat Developer Toolset is a Red Hat offering for developers on the Red Hat Enterprise Linux platform, and provides a complete set of development and performance analysis tools that can be installed and used on multiple versions of Red Hat Enterprise Linux. Executables built with the Red Hat Developer Toolset toolchain can then also be deployed and run on multiple versions of Red Hat Enterprise Linux. For detailed compatibility information, refer to Section 1.3, “Compatibility”.

Critically, Red Hat Developer Toolset does not replace the default system tools provided with Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 or 6 when installed on those platforms. Instead, a parallel set of developer tools provides an alternative, newer version of those tools for optional use by developers. The default compiler and debugger, for example, remain those provided by the base Red Hat Enterprise Linux system.

Red Hat Developer Toolset differs from “Technology Preview” compiler releases previously supplied in Red Hat Enterprise Linux in two important respects:

Important bug fixes and security errata will be issued to Red Hat Developer Toolset subscribers in a similar manner to Red Hat Enterprise Linux for two years from the release of each major version release. New major versions of Red Hat Developer Toolset will be released annually, providing significant updates for existing components and adding major new components. A single minor release, issued six months after each new major version release, will provide a smaller update of bug fixes, security errata, and new minor components.

Additionally, the Red Hat Enterprise Linux Application Compatibility Specification also applies to Red Hat Developer Toolset (subject to some constraints on the use of newer C++11 language features, detailed in Section A.1.3, “ABI Compatibility”).