Require Java 17 (LTS)

[TheSnoozer]

Describe the question / problem (required)

As per https://www.oracle.com/java/technologies/java-se-support-roadmap.html
11 (LTS) Premier Support Until September 2023.

Maybe the plugin should require Java 17?

Context (optional)

No response

[TheSnoozer]

As per https://maven.apache.org/docs/history.html
maven 4.0.0-alpha-13 now requires Java 17

[elharo]

Please don't. We are using this with Java 8. I expect others are too.
Also note that Oracle != Java. Java 8 is fully supported by multiple vendors

[TheSnoozer]

Maven 4.X is requiring Java 17 so this (breaking)change will eventually happen, not sure when.

Certainly there is IMHO the following to consider:

• September 2023 for Oracle Premier Support (https://www.oracle.com/java/technologies/java-se-support-roadmap.html)
• October 2027 for Eclipse Temurin (https://adoptium.net/support)
• October 2027 for Amazon Corretto (https://aws.amazon.com/corretto/faqs)
• January 2032 for Azul (https://www.azul.com/products/azul-support-roadmap)
• January 2032 for Oracle Extended Support (https://www.oracle.com/java/technologies/java-se-support-roadmap.html)

Whenever it is happening needs to evaluate what the best new version would be....I guess as this is a maven plugin following maven makes sense and enforcing java 17 eventually...

[elharo]

But Maven 3.9 is continuing, and I expect many projects will stick with that for compatibility reasons. Java 8 will go away eventually but not for multiple years yet.

[scrobbleme]

Please don't. We are using this with Java 8. I expect others are too. Also note that Oracle != Java. Java 8 is fully supported by multiple vendors

Is there any serious reason to still stick to Java 8 for the build prozess...? You can use a modern Java and still build for 8...

+1 for upgrading to Java 17. Escpecially with the (hopefully soon) release of Maven 4 ...

[elharo]

There are incompatibilities. One I recently noticed was that jdeprscan 17 can't analyze java 8.

[scrobbleme]

There are incompatibilities. One I recently noticed was that jdeprscan 17 can't analyze java 8.

(No offense meant, I'm just curious)

Thanks for the example, but isn't this more like a "once in a lifetime" command?
If you are still using Java 8 and still need to scan for deprecations regularly... doesn't sound like the typical blocker for a Maven plugin like this ;)

[elharo]

That's just the most recent thing I found. There's a lot of others, and likely others I've not yet noticed. There's very good reason for many shops and projects to stay on java 8 specifically given what Sun/Oracle did in Java 9+.

[TheSnoozer]

Ok let me explain: This ticket is here to *eventually move this plugin to Java 17. I'm well aware that there is more than "just" oracle who provides a version/variant of java, but even those other variants will stop to be supported at some point in the future. Therefore I can't comment when java 17 will be required, but at some point it will happen and should happen as some of the plugin's dependency already require a more recent java version (e.g. see git-commit-id/git-commit-id-plugin-core#172). Maybe when it's time to do this I will no longer have the time/motivation to maintain this project so maybe this update will never happen.

TDLR: I acknowledge that users still want and need this plugin to function with java 8. Eventually the plugin will be updated to java 17 - if your project still requires java 8 you can simply use an older version of the plugin...it's your choice. But eventually (maybe in 3 years or some time in the future) the plugin will drop java 8.