3 years, 17 alphas, 2 betas, and over 7,500 commits later, OpenSSL version 3 is here • The Register

The OpenSSL team has released version 3.0 of its eponymous secure communications library after a lengthy gestation period.

Coming nearly three years after its predecessor, version 1.1.1, the update lays claim to 17 alpha releases, two beta releases, and more than 7,500 commits. Equally significant is a near-doubling of the amount of documentation since upgrading an application to use it might not be an entirely simple process.

“OpenSSL 3.0 is a major release and not fully backwards compatible with the previous release,” explained Matt Caswell of the OpenSSL Management Committee.

While most applications that used the previous incarnation will work OK and just need a recompilation (although Caswell cautioned that deprecated APIs would likely result in warnings), some apps will need changing.