Hello Team, While reviewing discussions regarding public APIs in Kafka, I noticed that we lack a concrete, centralized definition of what constitutes a public API. The most relevant information currently available is found here: https://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/pages/viewpage.action?pageId=50859233#KafkaImprovementProposals-Whatisconsidereda%22majorchange%22thatneedsaKIP ( https://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/pages/viewpage.action?pageId=50859233#KafkaImprovementProposals-Whatisconsidereda%22majorchange%22thatneedsaKIP )?
Without formal definition or guardrails, there is a risk that builders may inadvertently import internal classes leading to possible build breakages when they compile against a newer Kafka version. I believe we should address this to ensure better consistency and prevent such occurrences. Please let me know if you feel this is something that can benefit the community, I can present the possible approaches through a KIP. Cheers, Ashwin
