So far it seems that using a new package, like freemarker.ext.jakarta.servlet and freemarker.ext.jakarta.jsp was the more popular compromise. As far as that part of the source code can be generated from the packages with similar names, I assume that we will give that approach a try. This we do after the Gradle PR was merged (which looks very close). Any comments?
On Tue, Nov 7, 2023 at 11:50 PM Daniel Dekany <ddek...@apache.org> wrote: > The package of Servlet related classes has changed because of Jakarta, > which breaks our Servlet support (freemarker.ext.servlet), which is packged > into freemarker.jar. > > We have to choose which end result we want (ignore the "how" for now) as > the solution, from these two (as far as I can tell): > > 1. We can copy the `freemarker.ext.servlet` package into > `freemarker.ext.jakartaservlet` (or such), and we will only have the normal > artifact in Maven Central, which contains that, and also the older > freemarker.ext.servlet. Explanation: As you probably know, 2.x has a single > monolithic freemarker.jar artifact, which already contains support classes > of various optional dependencies. We already support multiple incompatible > Serlvet/JSP versions, and has separate version-specific classes for some. > But, classes like freemarker.ext.servlet.FreemarkerServlet managed to stay > common amongst Servlet API versions. For the Jakarta change not even that > can remain common of course. > > 2. We can have an additional artifact variant (let's say via Maven > classifier "jakarta"), that still uses the `freemarker.ext.servlet` > package, but there that links to the Jakarta Servlet classes. This artifact > will drop support for pre-Jakarta Servlet/JSP versions. > > Possibility 1 pro: We don't have to publish one more artifact. Also, then > users don't have to fiddle with dependency management to choose the > artifact with the "jakarta" classifier. > > Possibility 1 con: Any existing dependent Java code that used > `freemarker.ext.servlet` so far, and wants to migrate to a Jakarta Servlet > container, has to be modified to link to `freemarker.ext.jakartaservlet` > instead. That sounds quite bad, however, the same dependent Java code > likely has to be modified anyway, to link to Jakarta Servlet classes. > Except, there are tools, like > https://github.com/apache/tomcat-jakartaee-migration, that transforms > jar-s to depend on Jakarta Servlet API, but same tools of course won't > replace links to freemarker.ext.servlet with freemarker.ext.jakartaservlet, > so some pain is expected. Also, `web.xml`-s that refer to > `freemarker.ext.servlet.FreemarkerSerlvet` also have to be modified, if > someone uses a Jakarta container. > > Opinions? > > Note 1: We had two attempts so far on this issue, but certainly the actual > solution will be a 3rd one. Anyway, the "how" is now not the point now, but > here they are: > > - https://github.com/apache/freemarker/pull/94 > - https://github.com/apache/freemarker/pull/95 > > Note 2: At some later(!) point, maybe in a FreeMarker 2.4.0, we can get > rid of non-Jakarta servlet support. At the same point, we will also get rid > of the GAE/non-GAE variety. So we could end up with just a single variant > of the freemarker 2.x artifact, over time. >
