Lets Speculate RHEL 7.x release dates

Important Note: The below is just hypothetical. Please do not think anything otherwise.

Edit: I have added a part 2 of this post at: http://aajkyakaroon.blogspot.com/2016/09/lets-speculate-rhel-7x-release-dates.html

Okay, so its been a quite long duration when RHEL/CentOS 7.2 was released. And I was thinking the other day when would the new version come. So I searched for 'RHEL 7.3 Release Date' on the Internet but this search result come for the old Red Hat 7.3 release and not the new RHEL one. In addition, there isn't even some speculation, or some insider information or anything available even just for entertainment on this topic. So, I thought to make one up.

I went through the wikipedia pages to get the dates of all RHEL releases, and then I put these in a spreadsheet. The dates are:

Note: In the below tables, the third column lists the difference (in days) for the particular update/release to its previous update/release.

RHEL 2.1				RHEL 3
Release Date	26-Mar-2002			Release Date	22-Oct-2003	575
Update 1	14-Feb-2003	325		Update 1	16-Jan-2004	86
Update 2	29-May-2003	104		Update 2	12-May-2004	117
Update 3	19-Dec-2003	204		Update 3	3-Sep-2004	114
Update 4	21-Apr-2004	124		Update 4	12-Dec-2004	100
Update 5	18-Aug-2004	119		Update 5	18-May-2005	157
Update 6	13-Dec-2004	117		Update 6	28-Sep-2005	133
Update 7	28-Apr-2005	136		Update 7	17-Mar-2006	170
	Average:	161		Update 8	20-Jul-2006	125
				Update 9	15-Jun-2007	330
					Average:	148
RHEL 4				RHEL 5
Release Date	15-Feb-2005	482		Release Date	14-Mar-2007	757
Update 1	8-Jun-2005	113		Update 1	7-Nov-2007	238
Update 2	5-Oct-2005	119		Update 2	21-May-2008	196
Update 3	12-Mar-2006	158		Update 3	20-Jan-2009	244
Update 4	10-Aug-2006	151		Update 4	2-Sep-2009	225
Update 5	1-May-2007	264		Update 5	30-Mar-2010	209
Update 6	15-Nov-2007	198		Update 6	13-Jan-2011	289
Update 7	29-Jul-2008	257		Update 7	21-Jul-2011	189
Update 8	19-May-2009	294		Update 8	20-Feb-2012	214
Update 9	16-Feb-2011	638		Update 9	7-Jan-2013	322
	Average:	244		Update 10	1-Oct-2013	267
				Update 11	16-Sep-2014	350
					Average:	249
RHEL 6				RHEL 7
Release Date	10-Nov-2010	1337		Release Date	10-Jun-2014	1308
Update 1	19-May-2011	190		Update 1	5-Mar-2015	268
Update 2	6-Dec-2011	201		Update 2	19-Nov-2015	259
Update 3	20-Jun-2012	197			Average:	264
Update 4	21-Feb-2013	246
Update 5	21-Nov-2013	273
Update 6	13-Oct-2014	326
Update 7	22-Jul-2015	282
Update 8	10-May-2016	293
	Average:	251

The third column shows the difference in days:

• For example: The RHEL 6 was released 1337 days after RHEL 5 was released.
• For example: The RHEL 7.2 update was released after 259 days of the release of RHEL 7.1 update.

From the above tables, I gather that the difference in days for the update releases is quite consistent from RHEL 4 onwards. The average difference in days between each release of RHEL 4 is 244 days. For RHEL 5 it is 249 days and for RHEL 6 it is 251 days.
Even till now, for RHEL 7, the difference in days is 264. So mostly, from RHEL 4 the difference has remained quite consistent.

The only difference that was drastically changed was the main release date difference from RHEL 5 to RHEL 6: at 1337 days (or approx. 3 years and 8 months). And, this difference has also carried forward from RHEL 6 to RHEL 7, which is 1308 days (or approx. 3 years and 7 months).

Also, another very big difference is between the RHEL 4.8 to RHEL 4.9 update releases which is at 638 days (or approx. 1 year and 9 months)

Another thing to note is the lifespan of RHEL releases:
(These difference is taken from the date of release of the main release and the date of release of the last update release.)
RHEL 2.1 -> 1129 days (approx. 3 years and 1 month)
RHEL 3    -> 1332 days (approx. 3 years and 8 months)
RHEL 4    -> 2192 days (approx. 6 years)
RHEL 5    -> 2743 days (approx. 7 years and 6 months)
RHEL 6    -> 2008 days and counting (approx. 5 years and 6 months and counting)

RHEL 6 and RHEL 7 have not yet reached their final releases.

As you can see above, the lifespan is increasing with each RHEL release. And the last edition runs deep into the current edition. Which will help in smoother transition.

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Okay, so coming back to the point release difference. The average of the four RHEL 4, 5, 6, and 7 comes to ((244+249+251+264)/4) = 252 days.

But, if we take the last six releases (4 of RHEL 6 and the 2 of RHEL 7), the average comes to ((273+326+282+293+268+259)/6) = 284 days.

So I am considering the average of these two numbers, i.e. ((252+284)/2) = 268 days. Hmm, isn't this the difference for the RHEL 7.1 release. Anyways moving on.

So, if we add 268 days to each point releases of RHEL 7 we get these dates:

RHEL 7
Release Date	10-Jun-2014	1308
Update 1	5-Mar-2015	268
Update 2	19-Nov-2015	259
Update 3	13-Aug-2016	268
Update 4	8-May-2017	268
Update 5	31-Jan-2018	268
Update 6	26-Oct-2018	268
Update 7	21-Jul-2019	268
Update 8	14-Apr-2020	268
Update 9	7-Jan-2021	268
Update 10	2-Oct-2021	268
Update 11	27-Jun-2022	268
	Average:	267

The next release, i.e. RHEL 7.3 would be on the 13th of August 2016.

The lifespan for RHEL 7 would be 2909 days (approx. 8 years)

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Another way would be to flesh out the RHEL 6 release dates and then calculate the averages.

In this case, RHEL 6 point release differences for the already released updates (1 to 8) are: 190, 201, 197, 246, 273, 326, 282 and 293 days.

As you can see, the first three updates are quite consistent, but the next update differences have grown quite a bit. Considering only the last four updates, you get the average as: ((273+326+282+293)/4) = 294 days.

Now adding 294 days to the future releases in RHEL 6, you get this table:

RHEL 6
Release Date	10-Nov-2010	1337
Update 1	19-May-2011	190
Update 2	6-Dec-2011	201
Update 3	20-Jun-2012	197
Update 4	21-Feb-2013	246
Update 5	21-Nov-2013	273
Update 6	13-Oct-2014	326
Update 7	22-Jul-2015	282
Update 8	10-May-2016	293
Update 9	28-Feb-2017	294
Update 10	19-Dec-2017	294
Update 11	9-Oct-2018	294
	Average:	263

So, the lifespan of RHEL 6 would be 2890 days (approx. 7 years and 11 months)

Again, we will calculate as we have done in the above section, but taking the last 9 releases:

The average of the four RHEL 4, 5, 6, and 7 comes to ((244+249+263+264)/4) = 255 days.

The last nine update average comes to ((273+326+282+293+294+294+294+268+259)/9) = 287 days.

So I am considering the average of these two numbers, i.e. ((255+287)/2) = 271 days.

So, if we add 271 days to each point releases of RHEL 7 we get these dates:

RHEL 7
Release Date	10-Jun-2014	1308
Update 1	5-Mar-2015	268
Update 2	19-Nov-2015	259
Update 3	16-Aug-2016	271
Update 4	14-May-2017	271
Update 5	9-Feb-2018	271
Update 6	7-Nov-2018	271
Update 7	5-Aug-2019	271
Update 8	2-May-2020	271
Update 9	28-Jan-2021	271
Update 10	26-Oct-2021	271
Update 11	24-Jul-2022	271
	Average:	270

The next release, i.e. RHEL 7.3 would be on the 16th of August 2016.

The lifespan for RHEL 7 would be 2936 days (approx. 8 years and 1 month)

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So, in the end we get two dates, either 13-Aug-2016 or 16-Aug-2016, i.e. mid Aug 2016 is when I can speculate that RHEL 7.3 will be released.