OpenSUSE Leap 42.3 Will Be Developed In A Rolling Manner

Ubuntu dropped their official alpha/betas long ago, Fedora 27 is dropping their alphas, and openSUSE is also shifting their development approach and will get rid of alpha and beta releases. OpenSUSE Leap 42.3 will be developed in a "rolling" manner although the release will not be a rolling-release post-release, unlike openSUSE Tumbleweed.

OpenSUSE 42.3 will be their first release developed without alphas and betas, instead treating it as a rolling-release up until the official release. Packages going into the rolling release, similar to Tumbleweed, will first be vetted by OpenQA with automated tests. OpenSUSE Leap 42.3 will be released at the end of July, when it will stop being a rolling-release while the stop of bigger package updates will be halted on 21 May and the package freeze will begin on 25 June.

OpenSUSE Leap 42.3 won't be a big release over Leap 42.2 but will be "service pack alike refresh." More details via SUSE's Ludwig Nussel message on the mailing list.