RPM Roadmap

2024

• RPM 4.20 release (Q3)
  • Hands-free packaging
    • Declarative build system
    • Extended dynamic spec generation
    • Support prepend and append to build scriptlets
    • File trigger scriptlet arguments
    • Support for spec local dependency generators
    • Support for sysusers ‘m’ directive
    • Guaranteed per-build directory
  • Public plugin API
  • Security
    • Increased install scriptlet isolation (#2632, #2665)
• RPM 4.19 bugfix release
• RPM v6 specification

2025

• RPM 6.0 release (Q3)
  • Introducing RPM v6 package format
  • Compatibility
    • v6 format is widely compatible with modern rpm 4.x versions
    • Can produce both v4 and v6 packages
    • Full support for v4 and v6 packages
    • Support for v3 format is dropped
  • Security
    • Enforced signature-checking by default
    • Legacy crypto algorithms disabled by default
    • Use full OpenPGP key fingerprints everywhere
  • Hand-free packaging
    • Automatic signing on package build
  • Compiled with C++
    • Gradual transition towards C++ internally
    • C API will remain

2026

• RPM 6.1 release (Q3)
  • Hands-free packaging
    • Safe handling of internal soname dependencies
    • AI based file classification alternative
  • Transaction robustness
    • Restartable transactions
    • Improved ordering, delayed scriptlet execution
  • Containers
    • rpmdb rebuild on overlayfs

2027

• RPM 6.2 release (Q3)
  • Hands-free packaging
    • File-classifier based actions
  • Containers
    • Container-friendly alternative rpmdb format
  • First public C++ API (alongside the trad. C API)

For further information and feedback, head over to our discussion forum.