On 2026/03/21 14:39:07 Oleg Kalnichevski wrote: > On Sat, 2026-03-21 at 07:34 -0700, Ryan Schmitt wrote: > > It looks like RAT won't get any more updates on Java 8. Should we > > raise our > > build-time Java requirement to 17? An increasing amount of build > > tooling is > > dropping support for Java 8, including Maven itself (Maven 4 has to > > run on > > Java 17+), and Windows for ARM doesn't even *have* Java versions > > older than > > 17. This isn't an externally visible change, as we would still build > > for > > Java 8 and test on Java 8/11 JREs; it mainly involves reworking the > > CI > > workflows and the POM files as needed. > > > > Ryan, > > There is a bigger question. > > How would you feel about dropping support for Java 8 and 11 altogether? > Is compatibility with those JREs still important for Amazon? > > When do you think we could finally discontinue support for those > versions?
Just wanted to share a few toughts because the debate is heated and I don't want to jump on it: We need to mentally separate between build requirement and compile time and runtime requirement. If some Maven plugins unfortunately require post Java 8 they are either behind a profile and the build requirement is raised. Maven 3.x has chosen the former, not the latter. Compile/runtime time requirement needs to evaluated for a new major version if there is a compile time benefit of a newer class version. Many projects move to a new version because it looks shiny, not because there is a class level benefit. Michael --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [email protected] For additional commands, e-mail: [email protected]
