IMHO Maven 4.0 is not close to ready for release. The most serious issue is the change of namespace. That's a major mistake that will cause large problems for developers, especially those who use tools other than Maven itself.
Second most serious issue is finalization of APIs. @Experimental features need to be committed to or removed. Similarly APIs have been deprecated but not documented with replacement. That also needs to be finished. Finally much of the new API is unnecessarily complex with unneeded separation of basic functionality like URLNormalizer into separate interfaces, implementations, services, and default implementations when all that’s needed is one single class with a few static methods. All of this can and should be fixed before release. Much of it cannot be fixed after release. There’s an old saying about undergraduate papers: they’re never finished, just submitted when the deadline comes. That’s what’s going on here. Maven 4 isn’t close to a finished product, and it’s not clear it has the resources or will to be finished, so there’s an urgency to push something out the door, ready or not. However, pushing it out in an unfinished state risks doing severe damage to the developer community and Maven’s reputation. It is better to ship nothing than to ship a half-baked product, discouraging as that is to the people who have been working on it. On Thu, Feb 12, 2026 at 5:10 PM Matthias Bünger <[email protected]> wrote: > > Good evening everybody, > last week a small number of commiter and PMC had a chat about the > current situation about Maven 4.0.0. > Nobody of the people attended was aware of any outstanding blocking > issues, but also nobody could precicle say what else needs to be done > for a GA release. As a result we collected some points on a wiki page [1]. > > Today Benjamin asked me to send a mail to the list, to gather feedback, > if we missed anything . Do you agree with the points on the list or do > you see any (and if yes, which) blocker that needs to be done, before we > can consider a 4.0.0 GA? > > Please note: This discussion should focus on "What's need to be done for > 4.0.0". It's not about discussions about will there new RC or was RC5 > the last RC. This can be discussed when we have a complete (as possible) > list of TO-DO's. So please avoid to restart any discussion about > alpha/beta/RC versions in this thread. What happend, happend (including > new features, like Maven Update tool, during RC phase) - thank you. > > Matthias > > [1]: > https://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/display/MAVEN/Maven+4.0.0+GA+checklist > > > --------------------------------------------------------------------- > To unsubscribe, e-mail: [email protected] > For additional commands, e-mail: [email protected] > -- Elliotte Rusty Harold [email protected] --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [email protected] For additional commands, e-mail: [email protected]
