RPM 4.20.0 ALPHA released!

[dmnks]

Spring is here again and with it, a preview of what's coming in the next major RPM update later this year, version 4.20, in the form of an ALPHA pre-release.

As per usual, a number of new features are in the works, most of which have already landed in this pre-release and are ready for a test drive. We've also (finally!) made the plugin API public, and removed the insecure legacy OpenPGP parser (replaced by Sequoia in 4.19).

It took quite a bit of pondering and back-and-forth to hash out a feasible plan where RPM can still be bootstrapped without either the internal OpenPGP parser or Rust entering the picture, but here we go. If you're a distro builder or just interested in the details, see the updated INSTALL file or #2984 for more background information.

You may also want to check out the Compatibility notes, in case your package(s) are affected.

Lastly, here's a quick summary of the changes:

• Declarative buildsystem support (#2774)
• Dynamic SPEC generation extended (#2646)
• Guaranteed per-build directory (#2885)
• Support for SPEC-local file attributes and generators (#2911)
• New prepend and append modes for build scriptlets (#2728)
• Python bindings have been ported to the stable ABI (#2674)
• Plugin API is now public (#2661)
• Increased isolation of install scriptlets on Linux via a new plugin (#2666)
• File trigger scripts now also receive package count arguments (#2871, #2883)
• Perl dependency generators have been split out (#2947)
• Internal OpenPGP parser has been removed (#2986, #2984)

For download information and a full (draft) changelog, visit: https://rpm.org/wiki/Releases/4.20.0