Background

Customers and partners alike will need some lead time to test their software integrations against the updated packages and hardware support included in RHEL 9 packages. 

Requirements

As a RHEL 9 based RHCOS is expected to GA in OpenShift 4.13, we should provide a preview 9 based option during the 4.12 cycle. Initial proposals:

• early OCP 4.12 builds running on RHEL 9 bits (for each architecture)
• "OKD 4.12" builds running on CentOS Stream CoreOS (SCOS)

Life cycle and testing

Builds would be produced sprintly. These would be standalone builds with no upgrade path (possibly even to the next preview). Participation in testing by other component teams will be required.

Support

While we will welcome bug reports, these builds will not have production support.