If I'm understanding this correctly, this sounds like a bad idea. While it does make the 2.x -> 3.x transition easier, it creates a bigger issue for when you go from 2.x -> 2.y. Personally I always find it very annoying when software makes big changes like this on a minor release, since it certainly goes against the spirit of semantic versioning.
This change is better documented in a "migrate from 2.x to 3.x" page. -Robert Middleton On Sun, Jan 19, 2025 at 12:17 PM Piotr P. Karwasz <pi...@mailing.copernik.eu> wrote: > > Hi Ralph, > > On 19.01.2025 17:55, Ralph Goers wrote: > > I must be misunderstanding. IIUC you are proposing that to eliminate > > optional dependencies we create a bunch of empty jars, presumably with a > > pom that has the dependency as required. How exactly does that help? > > Doesn’t that new, empty artifact just become an optional dependency? Isn’t > > it required during the build to allow the dependency to be resolved? > > As you remark, the optional dependencies in `log4j-core` must remain (at > least at compile time, so they must be either `provided` or > `compile+optional` like now). What I am proposing is to create a new > `log4j-async-logger` artifact with a non-optional dependency on > `com.lmax:disruptor`. We should then change the installation > documentation for async loggers[1] and ask users to add: > > > <dependency> > > <groupId>org.apache.logging.log4j</groupId> > > <artifactId>log4j-async-logger</artifactId> > > <scope>runtime</scope> > > </dependency> > > > The advantage of such a change is that: > > * It makes the upgrade to Log4j Core 3 trivial (the same dependency is > required in Log4j Core 3[2]) > > * Users no longer have to remember what `disruptor` is and why they > added it to their application. They will upgrade the version of > `disruptor` each time we upgrade it. > > Gradle has a special way to treat optional dependencies[3], this > proposal is the closest Maven-equivalent I could find. > > Piotr > > [1] https://logging.apache.org/log4j/2.x/manual/async.html#installation > > [2] https://logging.apache.org/log4j/2.x/manual/async.html#installation > > [3] https://blog.gradle.org/optional-dependencies >
