Also, if we do announce the 6 month thing, we could still leave open
the option for "emergency" releases. We have done that in the past, I
just wouldn't want to promise anything or have anyone count on more
fixes.

Chris

On Sat, Aug 22, 2026 at 10:21 AM Christopher Shannon
<[email protected]> wrote:
>
> I am ok with 4-6 months but am -1 on doing something longer and I plan
> to -1 any releases after that.
>
> At the end of the day, it doesn't matter how much time we give because
> whatever the timeline is, some people will just wait until the last
> second to do the work to upgrade so we need to cut it off.
>
> JDK 17 has been out for 5 years and Jakarta has been out for longer,
> It's more than past time to move on.
>
> On Fri, Aug 21, 2026 at 3:03 PM Matt Pavlovich <[email protected]> wrote:
> >
> > I agree it is a good time to announce a planned end of ‘active’ status to 
> > 5.19.x
> >
> > As you mentioned, this opens up the ability to start using JDK 17 features 
> > and beyond.
> > (Virtual Threads and the JAAS change is really going to drive us to a JDK 
> > 25 baseline runtime anyway)
> >
> > As far as timeframe, end of year would put it at 4mos. Going up to 6 mos 
> > may be something to consider (ie Feb 28 2027).
> >
> > In this thread (or another), JB mentioned perhaps doing a longer 5.19.x 
> > active status since this will be the last of the javax.jms supported client 
> > to balance not releasing a javax.jms client in the 6.x tree. Per the Azul 
> > report ~ 38% of enterprises still running JDK 8 and 11 (ref: 
> > https://keyholesoftware.com/java-trends-2026/)
> >
> > Thanks,
> > Matt
> >
> > > On Aug 21, 2026, at 7:31 AM, Christopher Shannon 
> > > <[email protected]> wrote:
> > >
> > > It sounds like everyone is on the same page to say that 5.19.x is not
> > > active anymore going forward, so I think we can go ahead and announce
> > > that and update the website, etc. This also means it should be safe to
> > > start using JDK 17 features finally, like updated switch statements or
> > > intanceof pattern matching as we won't be backporting.
> > >
> > > Because our web site still says that 5.19.x is stable and we haven't
> > > actually announced that 5.19.x will stop being supported, I think it
> > > makes sense to provide a short period of time for important/security
> > > updates still.
> > >
> > > I'm proposing until the end of the year for 5.19.x. I think we could
> > > announce that we will provide patch releases for 5.19.x that include
> > > major bug fixes (should be rare or non-existent) and security fixes
> > > (including dependency updates) until Dec 31st, 2026 and then we will
> > > cut it off. This shouldn't be a lot of work as we'd only be
> > > backporting limited stuff and I wouldn't expect many releases but that
> > > also just depends on security reports.
> > >
> > > Ultimately, we just have to cut it off at some point because if you
> > > don't give a deadline then some people just won't ever upgrade.
> > >
> > > Chris
> > >
> > > On Thu, Aug 6, 2026 at 4:35 PM Christopher Shannon
> > > <[email protected]> wrote:
> > >>
> > >> So now that 6.3.x is out are we good to stop supporting 5.19.x? I
> > >> personally have no desire to release anymore versions and think
> > >> we can cut it off.
> > >>
> > >> Also, I think 6.2.9 will be the last of the 6.2.x series, users can
> > >> move to 6.3.x going forward.
> > >>
> > >> On Sat, Jul 18, 2026 at 7:57 AM Jean-Louis Monteiro
> > >> <[email protected]> wrote:
> > >>>
> > >>> Hi all,
> > >>>
> > >>> Back from vacation, hopefully not to late for feedback.
> > >>>
> > >>> Thanks Chris for bringing the discussion up. I agree that we should now
> > >>> favor 6.x and set the EOL date for 5.x
> > >>> As JB mentioned, I don't think there is a need to shade the client jar 
> > >>> to
> > >>> bring it to javax namespace. The client is thin and selfcontained pretty
> > >>> much and there aren't any CVEs usually affecting it directly. So using 
> > >>> an
> > >>> old javax client is fine with me.
> > >>>
> > >>> So I'm +1 as well
> > >>>
> > >>> Hopefully that should give contributors some cycles to work on the 
> > >>> project
> > >>> features as opposed to backporting and doing releases on old versions.
> > >>>
> > >>>
> > >>> --
> > >>> Jean-Louis Monteiro
> > >>> http://twitter.com/jlouismonteiro
> > >>> http://www.tomitribe.com
> > >>>
> > >>>
> > >>> On Fri, Jul 17, 2026 at 11:03 PM Jamie G. <[email protected]> 
> > >>> wrote:
> > >>>
> > >>>> I think the direction is reasonable. +1
> > >>>>
> > >>>> On Fri, Jul 17, 2026 at 10:37 Christopher Shannon <
> > >>>> [email protected]> wrote:
> > >>>>
> > >>>>> Does anyone else have anymore thoughts on this?
> > >>>>>
> > >>>>> On Fri, Jul 10, 2026 at 8:29 AM Christopher Shannon
> > >>>>> <[email protected]> wrote:
> > >>>>>>
> > >>>>>> Hi JB,
> > >>>>>>
> > >>>>>> That's fine with me to only support Jakarta, as I said in my email
> > >>>>>> that's my preference. I don't really want to support javax at all in
> > >>>>>> 6.x and I'm in favor of dropping it, I just brought it up as an 
> > >>>>>> option
> > >>>>>> to see what others think.
> > >>>>>>
> > >>>>>> I think it's reasonable for people to just use the 5.x client because
> > >>>>>> the client has very few dependencies and doesn't change often.
> > >>>>>>
> > >>>>>> I think once 6.3.0 is out we should no longer be backporting anything
> > >>>>>> new to 5.19.x, i.e. no new flags or features or anything. All of that
> > >>>>>> needs to stop. Anything backported going forward should be limited
> > >>>>>> strictly to bug fixes and then further reduce it to only important
> > >>>>>> security fixes at some point. But as soon as we drop it entirely I
> > >>>>>> think the better because it's holding up modernization.
> > >>>>>>
> > >>>>>> Chris
> > >>>>>>
> > >>>>>>
> > >>>>>> On Fri, Jul 10, 2026 at 12:28 AM Jean-Baptiste Onofré 
> > >>>>>> <[email protected]
> > >>>>>
> > >>>>> wrote:
> > >>>>>>>
> > >>>>>>> Hi
> > >>>>>>>
> > >>>>>>> I think we discussed that in the past and the plan (as I recall) was
> > >>>> to
> > >>>>>>> stop working on 5.19.x when 6.3.0 will be out.
> > >>>>>>>
> > >>>>>>> I don't think we still need to support the javax client because:
> > >>>>> people can
> > >>>>>>> still use the latest 5.19.x version, even if it's not active, the
> > >>>>> artifacts
> > >>>>>>> are still available for use.
> > >>>>>>>
> > >>>>>>> Personally, I would just announce that 5.19.x is not active anymore,
> > >>>>> and
> > >>>>>>> people have to use 6.x.
> > >>>>>>> If we still provide javax support on 6.x (with another project),
> > >>>> users
> > >>>>> will
> > >>>>>>> just stay with it forever.
> > >>>>>>>
> > >>>>>>> I would rather propose the following:
> > >>>>>>> 1. 5.19.x won't be active anymore when 6.3.0 will be out. I'm fine 
> > >>>>>>> to
> > >>>>> give
> > >>>>>>> more time (up to 6.4.0 for instance), but not javax support in 6.x.
> > >>>>>>> 2. users can still use javax / 5.19.x
> > >>>>>>> 3. focus on the 6.x series
> > >>>>>>>
> > >>>>>>> I think 6.3.0 is pretty close (I'm resuming several working items 
> > >>>>>>> for
> > >>>>> this
> > >>>>>>> release). Jetty 12 is still needed. Matt is working on it: if we
> > >>>> don't
> > >>>>> have
> > >>>>>>> it soon, I will give a hand on that.
> > >>>>>>>
> > >>>>>>> So -1 for javax client, simply.
> > >>>>>>>
> > >>>>>>> Regards
> > >>>>>>> JB
> > >>>>>>>
> > >>>>>>> On Thu, Jul 9, 2026 at 7:40 PM Christopher Shannon <
> > >>>>>>> [email protected]> wrote:
> > >>>>>>>
> > >>>>>>>> I think it's time to discuss a timeline to officially end support
> > >>>> for
> > >>>>>>>> 5.19.x and all other 5.x releases.
> > >>>>>>>>
> > >>>>>>>> There are many reasons for EOL including:
> > >>>>>>>>
> > >>>>>>>> 1. Security: Because 5.x is still using javax we are unable to
> > >>>>> upgrade
> > >>>>>>>> many important dependencies. This includes Jetty and Spring so
> > >>>> every
> > >>>>>>>> release has dependencies shipped with lots of CVEs.
> > >>>>>>>> 2. We are unable to migrate to modern language features in JDK 17+
> > >>>>>>>> (like switch statement) because 5.19.x supports JDK 11.
> > >>>>>>>> 3. It's a lot of extra work to keep having to backport and perform
> > >>>>>>>> releases for 5.x
> > >>>>>>>> 4. It's just time to move on and modernize. Jakarta has been around
> > >>>>>>>> since 2019 at this point.
> > >>>>>>>>
> > >>>>>>>> So we just need to pick a time frame and publish when we will stop
> > >>>>>>>> supporting it. I would prefer to keep the timeframe relatively
> > >>>> short,
> > >>>>>>>> maybe 6 months or something.
> > >>>>>>>>
> > >>>>>>>> While I would prefer to only support Jakarta, I know that clients
> > >>>> are
> > >>>>>>>> often the last to be upgraded and can take longer. So if it helps
> > >>>>>>>> migration we could easily add a project to generate a javax client
> > >>>> in
> > >>>>>>>> 6.x (essentially the opposite of what we did in 5.x). We can just
> > >>>> use
> > >>>>>>>> maven to repackage it. Also, if we do that we could change the
> > >>>> target
> > >>>>>>>> JDK to version 11 only for the client (we don't use any new
> > >>>> language
> > >>>>>>>> features anyways). This would at least allow people with older JDKs
> > >>>>>>>> and on javax to still get updates for the client only while we move
> > >>>>>>>> the broker forward.
> > >>>>>>>>
> > >>>>>>>> Chris
> > >>>>>>>>
> > >>>>>>>>
> > >>>> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
> > >>>>>>>> To unsubscribe, e-mail: [email protected]
> > >>>>>>>> For additional commands, e-mail: [email protected]
> > >>>>>>>> For further information, visit:
> > >>>> https://activemq.apache.org/contact
> > >>>>>>>>
> > >>>>>>>>
> > >>>>>>>>
> > >>>>>
> > >>>>> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
> > >>>>> To unsubscribe, e-mail: [email protected]
> > >>>>> For additional commands, e-mail: [email protected]
> > >>>>> For further information, visit: https://activemq.apache.org/contact
> > >>>>>
> > >>>>>
> > >>>>>
> > >>>>
> > >
> > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------
> > > To unsubscribe, e-mail: [email protected]
> > > For additional commands, e-mail: [email protected]
> > > For further information, visit: https://activemq.apache.org/contact
> > >
> > >
> >

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