Lets Speculate RHEL 7.x release dates - Part 2

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

So, its obviously gone past mid-August 2016, the date/period which I thought would bring in the new RHEL 7.3 release. But, in August 2016, instead of a full release we just got a 7.3 Beta and that too on the 25th.

So, how much more time till RHEL 7.3 releases. Let's look at the last six Betas to Full Releases.

Release Number	Beta Date	Full release Date	Difference in Days
RHEL 5.11	9-Jul-2014	16-Sep-2014	69
RHEL 6.6	12-Aug-2014	14-Oct-2014	63
RHEL 7.1	12-Dec-2014	6-Mar-2015	84
RHEL 6.7	5-May-2015	22-Jul-2015	78
RHEL 7.2	2-Sep-2015	19-Nov-2015	78
RHEL 6.8	15-Mar-2016	10-May-2016	56
		Average Days:	71
RHEL 7.3	25-Aug-2016	4-Nov-2016

As per the average days between the betas and full releases, the release date for RHEL 7.3 will be 4 November 2016. Also, if we consider only the RHEL 7 series, then the difference is (84 + 78) / 2 = 81 days. This will further the release date to 14 November 2016.

Even if we consider 4-Nov-2016, the difference between the 7.2 and 7.3 release will be 351 days (or 361 days considering the latter date). This is the second largest difference between two update releases in RHEL history. The largest being RHEL 4.8 to RHEL 4.9 -> 638 days. There RHEL 4.9 was the last RHEL 4 release and must be considered as a one-off rather than a norm.

Where does this do for the future releases. I think that RHEL will follow this new bigger time lines for two reasons. First being delays in getting their targeted stability/features, and Second being more long support periods. As we had seen in my last post, the total lifespan of a RHEL release is not going anywhere forward of around 8 years.

Edit (4 November 2016): RHEL 7.3 finally released yesterday, 3 November 2016. Very close to the calculated prediction stated above.