Red Hat, Inc. (NYSE: RHT), the world's leading provider of open source solutions, today announced the general availability of Red Hat Software Collections 2, its latest installment of stable open source web development tools, dynamic languages and databases delivered on a separate lifecycle from Red Hat Enterprise Linux. With a more frequent release cadence, Red Hat Software Collections 2 expedites the creation of production-ready, modern applications, including those built with Linux container deployments in mind.

As developer requirements grow across the application ecosystem, especially with the rise of cloud-native and composable applications, simply having access to the latest tools is not enough. These tools must also be supported so that the resulting applications can be deployed into production with confidence; Red Hat Software Collections provides this confidence through our enterprise-grade support while still enabling developers to pick and choose the tools that best fit their respective projects. Jim Totton vice president and general manager, Platforms Business Unit, Red Hat

A key addition in Red Hat Software Collections 2 is support for multiple language versions. With significant differences between seemingly minor point releases of open source languages, developers can now select and standardize development on a specific language version that best meets their current needs while remaining confident that it is backed by Red Hat’s enterprise-class support. For example, Red Hat Software Collections 2 includes updates to Python 2.7, continues to support Python 3.3 and also adds Python 3.4 – providing a fully-supported language library and blending developer agility with production stability.

New Collections

Building upon an already robust selection of the latest, stable developer tools, Red Hat Software Collections 2 adds more than 10 new collections, including the aforementioned Python 3.4, PHP 5.6 and Passenger 4.0. This expanded selection delivers a host of new, fully-supported capabilities for developers on Red Hat Enterprise Linux and OpenShift seeking to build the next generation of enterprise applications.

Updated Collections

Additionally, more than 10 already-included collections have received updates as part of Red Hat Software Collections 2. While some of the updates center on usability tweaks or general maintenance needs, others introduce new functionality, like the python-wheel and python-pip inclusions for Python 2.7. This curation enables Red Hat Software Collections 2 to cater to new development projects while also meeting the needs of existing and in-process developer initiatives.

Containerized Applications

As the benefits of Linux containers based on the Docker format continue to take center stage in the developer world, Red Hat Software Collections 2 continues Red Hat’s commitment to bridging the Linux container lifecycle with enterprise requirements, from development to deployment to maintenance. Red Hat Software Collections 2 makes Dockerfiles available for many of the most popular collections, including Perl, PHP, Python and Ruby, helping developers to "hit the ground running" when entering the world of Linux containers.

Red Hat Software Collections 2 users will also have access to the latest version of Red Hat Developer Toolset, a collection of more traditional C and C++ compilers and tools as well as the Eclipse IDE for a fully-realized application development portfolio, with use cases ranging from traditional applications to microservices.

As with all previous installments, the collections included in Red Hat Software Collections 2 will remain supported for two to three years, enabling applications built with these collections to be deployed into production with confidence. Deployment also remains flexible, as developers will be able to deliver applications on Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7, Red Hat Enterprise Linux Atomic Host, and OpenShift.

Supporting Quotes

Jim Totton, vice president and general manager, Platforms Business Unit, Red Hat

"As developer requirements grow across the application ecosystem, especially with the rise of cloud-native and composable applications, simply having access to the latest tools is not enough. These tools must also be supported so that the resulting applications can be deployed into production with confidence; Red Hat Software Collections provides this confidence through our enterprise-grade support while still enabling developers to pick and choose the tools that best fit their respective projects ."