Misc #21657: Question: Is Ruby 4.0 planned for December 2025 or later?

• Status: Feedback
• Assignee: -

[dmitry.pogrebnoy (Dmitry Pogrebnoy)]

Hello Ruby core team,

I noticed that the first preview of Ruby 3.5 has been released, and at the same time there’s some talk in the community about Ruby 4.0 potentially arriving in December 2025.
Could you please clarify what the current roadmap looks like?

Is Ruby 4.0 already planned for this December, or is the next stable release still Ruby 3.5?

Having a clear, public roadmap would really help library and tooling authors (like IDE vendors) prepare for upcoming versions and provide better support.

Thank you!

[nobu (Nobuyoshi Nakada)]

• Status changed from Open to Feedback

dmitry.pogrebnoy (Dmitry Pogrebnoy) wrote:

Having a clear, public roadmap would really help library and tooling authors (like IDE vendors) prepare for upcoming versions and provide better support.

I'm curious what kind of problems can happen to library and tooling author by bumping up the major version.
Can't you tell us if there is anything you expect?

[dmitry.pogrebnoy (Dmitry Pogrebnoy)]

Thank you for the clarification!

I just wanted to make sure there isn’t another release already planned beyond 3.5. For example, a 4.0 version with some other significant changes.
If it’s purely a versioning matter and 3.5 remains the next major release, that’s perfectly fine. I just wanted to confirm so we can plan ahead accordingly.

[ufuk (Ufuk Kayserilioglu)]

It seems like the next version of Ruby will be branded as 4.0, but that is completely a decision for @matz (Yukihiro Matsumoto) to make as he wishes. Ruby version numbers don't follow semantic versioning, so 4.0 doesn't mean that there will be breaking changes. Any major.minor version combination could have breaking changes, as it has known to happen.

With that said, does it still matter for you if the next version is named 4.0 or 3.5?

[dmitry.pogrebnoy (Dmitry Pogrebnoy)]

Thank you! The version number itself doesn’t affect anything on our side. Whether it’s released as 3.5 or 4.0, both are perfectly fine. I just wanted to make sure I’m not missing an extra release in between.