Team, I will start a discussion thread on the users list so we can hear more inputs from them and from that perspective.
This thread needs to focus on what the contributors/committers/PMC in the community can/will/should do and the PMC in particular as we're obligated to ensure we're putting out software for which we can stand behind its security posture. We do not need to get worried about customers. They have vendors that support them. What we need to worry about and continue to do an excellent job caring for is the apache nifi user base and we need to ensure they don't have the belief that the NiFi 1.x line will be fixed in the presence of vulnerability reports. I'll ask on the users list how folks would like us to communicate about the state of things. What I think we need to ask here is more in the spirit of what this thread was started about. When do we as a contributor/committer/PMC base want to make it official in our own sense that we will not be producing releases for the 1.x line? How we best communicate/help the user base then follows from that. Stated another way those who feel they will be in a good position to do security reviews, vulnerability scans and remediation, conduct releases for some period of time please share what you think you'll be able to do and roughly for how long. Thanks On Tue, Nov 5, 2024 at 3:36 AM Pierre Villard <pierre.villard...@gmail.com> wrote: > Hi all, > > While I think we could set an EOL date a bit further in the future, it is > important to keep in mind what EOL means. It only means we won't be > providing security fixes / bug fixes through new releases. It does not > mean that NiFi 1.x is gone. If that is a big concern for some users when > running EOL software then we should remind those users that they've been > doing it for 2+ years already when using NiFi 1.x (taking Jetty as an > example here). And Joe is definitely right when saying that we have a > smaller and smaller group of people willing to spend an extensive amount of > time taking care of PR/reviews, of release candidates, testing/validating > RCs, etc, for the 1.x line. > > I also agree that, even if many users are already using NiFi 2 in > production, many places have strict policies to not adopt a new major > release. I don't want to start a debate whether this is making sense or not > but we know those rules exist in many places :) And the fact that we had > milestone releases for one year is not going to be enough of an argument. > > Given what we've seen in the past, we usually make a new release every 3 > months or so. It's probably fair to assume a 2.1.0 release will happen > early next year. With that in mind, I tend to agree with Michael suggesting > an EOL date at the end of January (3 months from now). We could also say > that 1.28.1 will happen at this time and will be the last one in the > community. > > Vendors have already announced support for NiFi 1.x for multiple additional > years so this approach follows what we see in other projects where extended > support is only provided through paid options with specific companies. > > It is awesome to finally see 2.0 out and this decision will help drive > users to that new release, which is much better in so many ways... > > Thanks, > Pierre > > > Le mar. 5 nov. 2024 à 10:36, Isha Lamboo <isha.lam...@virtualsciences.nl> > a > écrit : > > > Hi all, > > > > I understand the reasons to declare an EOL quickly, given the external > > dependencies, but like Russell said before the short notice is going to > > cause trouble with our bigger corporate customers. It would have been > nice > > to have the EOL date announced about a year ago, even if it had been a > > provisional one. The more you can delay it now, the less credibility I > (and > > NiFi itself) lose :-\ > > > > I've been pushing since the first announcement of NiFi 2.0 for our > > customers to prepare. The smaller NiFi instances are all prepared. But > > there are also big customers with hundreds of flows that depend on > > variables and XML templates, and as you can imagine this was never a > > priority for them without either a NiFi 2.0 GA to move to or an actual > EOL > > date to get security officers upping the priority. > > > > Now we have a GA release finally, but corporate Q4 plans are set in stone > > and Q1 2025 plans are already filling up. Telling the customers' > > development teams to upend their plans and tell their business customers > to > > forget deliveries because NiFi needs to be fixed ASAP is probably not > going > > to fly and instead going to seriously dent NiFi's reputation and > position. > > Unless we can automate the flow migration process it's going to be a > > year-long migration at least. > > > > That said, are there any tools or scripts to make the migration smoother? > > Configuring multiple levels of parameter contexts with inheritance is a > > labor-intensive process if we are to mirror the current setup with > > variables being inherited from main canvas, team PG, subject PG and flow > > PG, etc. Anything that could go through the process groups and configure > > this automatically would be greatly appreciated. I will look into that > > myself too, but anything helps really. > > > > Regards, > > > > Isha > > > > -----Oorspronkelijk bericht----- > > Van: Joe Witt <joe.w...@gmail.com> > > Verzonden: maandag 4 november 2024 23:44 > > Aan: dev@nifi.apache.org > > Onderwerp: Re: [DISCUSS] End-of-life timing for NiFi 1 > > > > The EOL discussion is not here because we have a new problem. It is here > > because we finally have an answer. > > > > The inability to address reported vulnerabilities or fundamental end of > > life status for key underlying components in the 1.x line is a problem > that > > was fully recognized three years ago. > > > > In that time we created a plan for what NiFi 2.0 would be and how we'd > > manage both maintaining the 1.x line while building to the 2.x GA. In > the > > past year we've conducted four milestone releases of NiFi 2.x and we've > > continued putting out feature, bug fix, and security improvement releases > > of 1.x. > > > > Feature bearing releases of 1.x are no longer appropriate as 2.x is here > > and GA and that was the plan all along. > > > > Bug fixes are still reasonable in spirit but you need people to submit > the > > JIRAs, fix the JIRAs, peer review the changes, and to conduct releases > and > > make votes. That is in increasingly short supply as it has been quite > the > > task splitting attention across two major lines and naturally developers > > and users will gravitate toward the go forward path. > > > > Vulnerability/Security related considerations are where things are > > fundamentally problematic. We had a security report today about the > super > > old/outdated front-end libraries we use in 1.x. That won't change. We > had > > a report last week about Spring libraries needing updated except you > can't > > unless you have Pivotal support so not an option. Those won't change. We > > have had questions around Jetty changes but that is tied to Java 8. > We've > > had questions about Java 8 being end of life and even Java 11 and even > now > > Java 17 in terms of its codebase permissive licensing changing. The > things > > we can reasonably address in the 1.x line are getting smaller and smaller > > and the time required to address any new thing is higher and higher. > > > > We as a community, regardless of good intentions, cannot fix the illities > > of the 1.x line and thus the 2.x line is here. The 1.x line will > > absolutely continue to atrophy and it will accelerate. If we do not > signal > > EOL on 1.x that means we're saying we can keep fixing problems. While > that > > is true for bugs, that is not true for vulnerabilities broadly and for > our > > most critical components. > > > > If you still fix bugs people assume this means you still reasonably fix > > vulnerabilities/etc.. And unless we declare EOL on the 1.x line we will > > continue to get non-serviceable reports and mislead the user base. > > > > The answer is to clearly signal that users should transition to the 2.x > > line and focus our help on answering questions people might have on how > to > > do that. > > > > I am supportive of EOL for the 1.x line. I also like the poetic nature > of > > the decade timing. > > > > On Mon, Nov 4, 2024 at 2:47 PM David Handermann < > > exceptionfact...@apache.org> > > wrote: > > >
