Open source enterprise software developer Red Hat released Software Collections 2.2 last week, the latest version of its collection of open source Web development tools, dynamic languages, and databases. The new tools are designed to provide software developers with access to the company's latest stable builds, even though a new version of its flagship enterprise operating system has yet to be released.

“Developers need the latest tools to build modern applications, particularly cloud-native applications, but the business at large requires a commitment to application stability that many of these tools simply do not have,” Jim Totton, vice president and general manager of Red Hat’s Platforms Business Unit, said in a statement.

Backed by Red Hat’s enterprise-grade support and the company's technology portfolio, "the latest installment of Red Hat Software Collections helps developers gain access to the latest stable builds of needed tools while holding true to the requirements of the broader business for stable, supported production applications," Totton said.

New Tools for Developers

The company’s Software Collections are separate from its more famous Enterprise Linux products, and are more frequently updated. Software Collections are collections of tools designed to help developers bridge the gap between updates of the company’s Linux releases to increase production stability and accelerate development and production.

Red Hat said it has also released its Developer Toolset 4.1, which helps to streamline application development on Red Hat Enterprise Linux by giving developers access to its latest stable open source C and C++ compilers and complementary development and performance profiling tools.

The Developer Toolset, accessible through the Red Hat Developer Program, lets developers compile applications once and deploy them across multiple versions of Red Hat Enterprise Linux.

Among the additions included in Software Collections 2.2 are new open source databases such as MariaDB 10.1, MongoDB 3.2, and PostgreSQL 9.5, and new open source languages such as Node.js v4.4, Python 3.5, Ruby 2.3, and Rails 4.2, as well as Maven 3.3. The latest release also includes several updated collections, like MongoDB 2.6, Python 2.7, Apache 2.4, and Thermostat 1.4.

Meanwhile, the upgrade to the Developer Toolset also includes several new features, such as the GNU Compiler Collection 5.3, GNU Project Debugger 7.11, Eclipse 4.5.2, and a number of updates to toolchain components and performance tools, like Dynist 9.1 and SystemTap 2.9.

Built for Containers

Both Red Hat Software Collections 2.2 and Red Hat Developer Toolset 4.1 are now available to customers and partners with select active Red Hat Enterprise Linux subscriptions. Additionally, for developers looking to take advantage of Linux containers, several Red Hat Software Collections are available as Dockerfiles and Docker-formatted images, with the latter made available via the Red Hat Customer Portal.

Last March, Red Hat released a new operating system designed specifically to run the latest generation of applications such as Linux containers. Linux containers are virtualization environments that allow an organization to run multiple isolated Linux systems on a single Linux control host. Containers introduce autonomy for applications by packaging apps with the libraries and other binaries on which they depend.