Hi all,
I've been giving some thought to how we want to support RDF4J users that are not yet ready to migrate away from Java 8, after we've done the 4.0 release.
The problem we're facing is that it is becoming harder and harder to keep a developer ecosystem that can smoothly run releases in the older Java version (see the recent trouble I had with the Javadoc plugin or the compilation problem we had with the 3.7.5 release). This kind of thing will only get worse once 4.0 is out the door and has become our main branch.
I don't want us to be in a situation where we are constantly fixing compatibility problems in our environments. To me, Java 8 development stops once 4.0 is out the door. But I also recognize that we cannot completely abandon support immediately, for example to address security issues.
What I suggest as our approach is this:
- after releasing 4.0, we will not be doing any more 3.x / Java 8 feature releases. Any improvements, "normal" bug fixes or new features are targeted at 4.x, and therefore at Java 11 or better.
- For security issues that affect the most recent 3.7.x release, we will do a hotfix 3.7 release targeted at fixing that security issue only. This will still be Java 8-compatible.
- We may choose to back-port certain other bug fixes to 3.7 and do a patch release. This is at committer discretion only and we make no advance promises/guarantees.
Thoughts?
Jeen
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