For many, oVirt’s roots with Red Hat established it as a cornerstone open source virtualization platform – powering thousands of workloads worldwide. Even though Red Hat has stepped back from oVirt development, the oVirt project is proving it’s not just alive – but thriving – with renewed community leadership, fresh innovations, and new contributors joining the mission. We’re excited to share that Oracle is among the active contributors helping to shape oVirt’s bright future.
Continuing Momentum: From Maintenance to Major Milestones
Since transitioning from a single Linux vendor to a broader open source stewardship model, the oVirt development team have worked tirelessly behind the scenes. Their efforts have yielded significant improvements, ranging from modernizing core infrastructure, revitalizing CI/CD pipelines, and updating critical build processes, to addressing technical debt and introducing key fixes. Here are just a few of the advances:
- Platform updates: The project has intentionally dropped support for CentOS 8, focusing on CentOS Stream 9 and 10 as well as Enterprise Linux 9 and 10, to help ensure compatibility and future-proofing the codebase.
- Modern Java support: oVirt’s Java components now build on OpenJDK 21, while retaining backward compatibility with OpenJDK 11+, unifying the development experience across supported operating systems.
- Python modernization: The team has methodically replaced legacy components like python-six and python-nose with native Python 3 and PyTest, strengthening long-term maintainability.
- Full dependency availability: Required dependencies are now offered through the oVirt Virt SIG, streamlining installation and testing on CentOS 10 and the broader Enterprise Linux 10 ecosystem.
Embracing Change, Deprecating Legacy
As part of keeping oVirt relevant and robust, the project has made pragmatic decisions:
- Legacy integrations like cinderlib, GlusterFS, and CollectD are deprecated or removed from builds targeting CentOS Stream and Enterprise Linux 10, aligning the platform with community needs and available technologies.
- ovirt-node-ng ISO images are under review, with a shift encouraged toward modern Linux distributions and standard package installations.
Easy to Test – Your Feedback Matters
Thanks to these modernization efforts, testing oVirt on CentOS Stream 9 and 10 is easier than ever. Fresh builds are available on COPR , and community feedback is invaluable – bug reports and reproduction steps help shape the most stable and feature-rich releases.
Community, Collaboration, and Growth
The oVirt team has also introduced a new communication channel via Matrix, and we encourage you to join the discussion and connect with contributors and users . This promotes open, transparent, and real-time dialogue to help foster an even stronger community.
Oracle is proud to be working alongside talented engineers and open source advocates from across the industry, all united in our commitment to virtualization innovation and open collaboration.
What’s Next? Get Involved!
As the oVirt Community is collectively driving toward the next oVirt update, there are many ways to get involved:
- Test builds and report issues
- Help improve documentation, website, or translations
- Submit pull requests, big or small
Explore contribution opportunities on GitHub , improve translations via Weblate , and join the oVirt Community on Matrix for live discussions.
A special thanks to Jean-Louis Dupong and all contributors past and present for keeping oVirt vibrant and open. Oracle is excited to contribute to oVirt’s future and to support Jean-Louis and his team as they lead the community forward.
For questions and collaboration, connect with the oVirt Community on Matrix or contribute directly via GitHub. Let’s power the future of the real open source virtualization together!