Hi, We were originally expecting to keep Java 11 to the 2026 EOL date for extended support, but now that date is moved to 2032 which feels like more time than we need. The issue for us is that getting technology approved for use in an enterprise can have ridiculously long lead times, so having a minimum supported version that is only 2 years old, while probably ok in most case, would be a bit aggressive. We use optional dependencies where we can, so e.g. the Java 17 dependency for Spark 4 would only affect clients using Spark 4, and they could wait to upgrade. But we chose to use Arrow in the core of our product, it is the internal format everything else goes through. On the compliance side we have to keep current with security updates, so there is no option to stick on an old version.
If we were to drop Java 11 after the next LTS comes out, i.e. 2025 / 2026, then the three latest LTS versions would be supported and the minimum version would have been available for 4 - 5 years. I think it would be very hard to argue 17 can’t be made available at that point. If Arrow forces our hand then obviously we’ll have to go sooner, but it wouldn’t be ideal for us. Lastly just on language capabilities, the only things we’re really interested in are performance related, probably virtual threads and foreign memory would be the main ones. Both of the those could be optional dependencies, in the case of FFM we’d rely on either yourselves or Netty anyway to provide an allocator. So in fact there is very little benefit for us to drop Java 11 early, all it costs us is one extra CI job. Hope some of this is helpful - apologies for the high latency, busy as always!! Martin. > On 1 May 2024, at 22:38, Dane Pitkin <d...@voltrondata.com.INVALID> wrote: > > Thanks, Martin. It's great to hear of real-world use cases. Do you > anticipate any timeline for dropping Java 11 for your product? If Arrow did > drop Java 11, then it sounds like pinning Arrow Java to an older version > wouldn't be an ideal option if security patches are not backported. > > Fokko, can you elaborate on the discussions held in other OSS projects to > drop Java <17? How did they weigh the benefits/drawbacks for dropping both > Java 8 and 11 LTS versions? I'd also be curious if other projects plan to > support older branches with security patches. > > > > > > > > On Tue, Apr 30, 2024 at 4:14 PM <martin.trave...@icloud.com.invalid> wrote: > >> Speaking for my own product we would like to see Java 11 support, we rely >> heavily on Arrow and have Java 11 as our minimum supported version. We’d >> like to keep doing that if possible. Our clients are big enterprises with >> notoriously sluggish update cycles, so we want to offer maximum >> compatibility. Once security patches are no longer available on the regular >> public channels then there is a compliance issue, so we generally follow >> the EOL schedule of our dependencies. >> >> Corretto, Adoptium and Zulu all have recent public builds of both 8 and 11 >> and look set to support them with public builds for many years to come. >> Several organisations I have worked with switched away from Oracle when >> they made their licensing blunder with Java 8 and although that is >> rectified now, the change seems to have stuck in quite a few places (at >> least in my anecdotal experience). >> >> A major practical difference to me in Java 17 is the strong encapsulation >> of internals. Since that affects the majority of serious Java applications >> then perhaps most people have figured out by now to add the JVM params that >> let Java continue working. Still, it could be a consideration, if Java17 >> is the baseline supported version. >> >> Regards, >> Martin. >> >> - In case anyone is curious why we don’t support Java 8 per our own >> policy, it’s because of the “var” keyword - seriously, why did Java take so >> long with that, even C++ got there sooner! >> >>> On 30 Apr 2024, at 16:20, Jacob Wujciak <assignu...@apache.org> wrote: >>> >>> Hello everyone! >>> Great to see this move forward! >>> +1 on dropping both 8 and 11 unless there is very good reason to keep 11 >>> around. >>> Otherwise people will just move to 11 and then have the pain of migration >>> again when we drop that (which will happen soon regardless imo). >>> >>> Am Di., 30. Apr. 2024 um 16:18 Uhr schrieb Dane Pitkin >>> <d...@voltrondata.com.invalid>: >>> >>>> Thanks, JB. Are we aware of any downstream dependencies that would >> benefit >>>> from maintaining Java 11 support? Apache Spark jumped straight to Java >> 17. >>>> It seems other projects are dropping both 8 and 11 at the same time as >>>> mentioned by Fokko. From a maintenance perspective, it would be nice to >>>> drop both. >>>> >>>> On Mon, Apr 29, 2024 at 11:20 AM Jean-Baptiste Onofré <j...@nanthrax.net> >>>> wrote: >>>> >>>>> Hi >>>>> >>>>> I think it's time to drop JDK8 support. I would say that we should >>>>> keep Java11 (jumping directly to Java17 would be problematic >>>>> potentially for some users I guess). >>>>> >>>>> Regards >>>>> JB >>>>> >>>>> On Thu, Apr 25, 2024 at 10:21 PM James Duong >>>>> <james.du...@improving.com.invalid> wrote: >>>>>> >>>>>> If we dropped JDK 8, we could use the JDK to compile module-info.java >>>>> files. Then we could remove the custom maven plugin we’re using for >>>>> compiling module-info.java files for JPMS support and get better IDE >>>>> integration (as what we’re doing currently somewhat shoe-horns module >>>>> information alongside JDK8 bytecode). >>>>>> >>>>>> From: Dane Pitkin <d...@voltrondata.com.INVALID> >>>>>> Date: Thursday, April 25, 2024 at 1:02 PM >>>>>> To: dev@arrow.apache.org <dev@arrow.apache.org> >>>>>> Subject: [DISCUSS] Drop Java 8 support >>>>>> Hi all, >>>>>> >>>>>> I would like to revisit the discussion of dropping Java 8 (and maybe >>>> 11) >>>>>> from Arrow's Java implementation. See GH issue[1] below. This was also >>>>>> discussed in the last Arrow community sync meeting on 2024-04-24. >>>>>> >>>>>> For context, this was discussed[2] last year on this mailing list. We >>>>>> decided to revisit the discussion around the June 2024 release (Arrow >>>>> v17). >>>>>> The timing coincides with the initial release of Apache Spark 4.0.0, >>>>> which >>>>>> drops both Java 8 and 11 support. >>>>>> >>>>>> For background, we chose not to drop Java 8 support last year because >>>>> Arrow >>>>>> is seen as a low level library that should support as many >> environments >>>>> as >>>>>> possible. Nowadays, we see more enthusiasm for dropping Java 8 (and >> 11) >>>>> as >>>>>> exemplified by Apache Spark as well as Apache Iceberg[3]. >>>>>> >>>>>> Is it time to consider dropping Java 8? Should we drop Java 11 and >> skip >>>>>> straight to Java 17 as our minimum version? What implications do we >>>> need >>>>> to >>>>>> be aware of? >>>>>> >>>>>> Thanks, >>>>>> Dane >>>>>> >>>>>> [1]https://github.com/apache/arrow/issues/38051 >>>>>> [2]https://lists.apache.org/thread/s07jx58yw4mkl54t3bkggnyg0sftcrr8 >>>>>> [3]https://lists.apache.org/thread/ntrk2thvsg9tdccwd4flsdz9gg743368 >>>>> >>>> >> >>
