For what it's worth it looks like some (maybe many) of the 5.3 update srpms are starting to appear e.g. under ftp://ftp.redhat.com/pub/redhat/linux/enterprise/5Server/en/os/SRPMS/ I see the new kernel kernel-2.6.18-128.el5.src.rpm etc. The announcements of the new bits seem to have started... https://rhn.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2009-0225.html Important: Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.3 kernel security and bug fix update https://rhn.redhat.com/errata/RHEA-2009-0133.html A new redhat-release package is now available for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.3. etc etc. I see that they decided to include nedit :-)