Responses in line :)

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On Sun, Jan 11, 2026 at 4:46 PM Dongjoon Hyun <[email protected]> wrote:

> Hi Holden, Mridul, Huaxin, and John.
>
> Thank you for sharing the idea — I appreciate the initiative and the
> thought behind it.
>
> That said, the proposal feels a bit fragile to me without a clearer
> delivery and maintenance plan. To help us better evaluate and align on
> this, could you share a more concrete plan for how the proposal would be
> maintained and delivered, specifically for branch-3.5 during the extended
> period? (if you want to move forward with branch-3.5).

Totally, it’s currently an early discussion to see if there is interest
beyond just me :) Let me follow up with a formal proposal given that there
does seem to be some interest although we need to get the details right.

>
>
> In particular, it would be very helpful to understand the following
> technical and operational aspects:
>
> a. What is the exact duration of the proposed extension for branch-3.5?
> Currently, Apache Spark website says "For example, 3.5.0 was released on
> September 13th 2023 and will be maintained for 31 months until April 12th
> 2026."
>
So the plan then would be to target April 12th 2028 (although if people
thing 24 months is too long we could do a shorter expirement for 12 and
April 12th 2027 would be that date).

>
> b. Who would be serving the community as release managers during that
> period?
> I assume Holden, Mridul, and Huaxin would be willing to volunteer for
> those roles, at least for the duration of the extension.

I can’t speak for the other, but I’d be happy to. Part of the discussion is
to see if others would see value from this.

>
>
> c. Beyond the release manager responsibilities, would you also be planning
> to act as first responders during the extended period?
>
> - For monitoring, maintaining and recovering the release scripts and CI
> for branch-3.5

I think we’d probably accept CI degradation given security only fixes but
I’d intend to fix it / update it as needed.

>
> - For reviewing community security-related PRs targeting branch-3.5

I think we’d ask folks to go through private@ as with other security
changes.

>
> - For responding to requests from the ASF Security Team on the dev@spark
> mailing list regarding branch-3.5

this would be on private@, but yes.

>
>
> Thanks in advance for the clarification. I think having more detail here
> will really help the community assess the burden of proposal and move the
> discussion forward constructively.

It seems there’s enough base-level interest to put together a proper
proposal with more details. I’ll take that on in the coming week.

>
>
> Best regards,
> Dongjoon
>
> On 2026/01/09 03:30:01 Holden Karau wrote:
> > in-line:
> >
> > On Thu, Jan 8, 2026 at 6:04 PM John Zhuge <[email protected]> wrote:
> >
> > > +1, I think this is a good idea.
> > >
> > >
> > > On Thu, Jan 8, 2026 at 4:52 PM Dongjoon Hyun <[email protected]>
> wrote:
> > >
> > >> Hi, Holden.
> > >>
> > >> Are you proposing to extend all future LTSs or just 3.5.x LTS?
> > >>
> > > I'm focused on 3.5 for now, I think we'll find out if our new
> > frequent release cadence makes upgrades easier for people.
> >
> > >
> > >> When we have a major release and its LTS every year from 2027, could
> you
> > >> give us next 3 year examples of your future release plans based on the
> > >> existing "SPIP: Accelerating Apache Spark Release Cadence" policy and
> your
> > >> new proposal together?
> > >
> > > I'm not yet saying that I think we should add a security-only period to
> > the end of all future major releases, although it is a very natural
> > extension of my suggestion so thanks for asking :)
> >
> > Personally I think we'll see what the upgrade cycle and support cycle
> looks
> > like with the new SPIP and depending on how 3.5 security only fixes and
> how
> > the yearly LTS releases go we can evaluate something further down the
> line.
> > I could see us adding a security updates only period to the LTS releases
> > though but I do want to do a trial with 3.5 where we've already got
> vendors
> > committed to supporting it (albiet commercially).
> >
> > >
> > >> Dongjoon.
> > >>
> > >> On 2026/01/09 00:17:45 huaxin gao wrote:
> > >> > +1 for extending LTS with security-only fixes for an additional 24
> > >> months.
> > >> >
> > >> > On Thu, Jan 8, 2026 at 3:28 PM Mridul Muralidharan <
> [email protected]>
> > >> wrote:
> > >> >
> > >> > >
> > >> > > +1 for security fixes.
> > >> > >
> > >> > > Regards,
> > >> > > Mridul
> > >> > >
> > >> > > On Thu, Jan 8, 2026 at 3:52 PM Holden Karau <
> [email protected]>
> > >> > > wrote:
> > >> > >
> > >> > >> Hi Folks,
> > >> > >>
> > >> > >> I'd like to float the idea of extending our LTS release support
> > >> period
> > >> > >> for security fixes. In practice we've seen most vendors support
> the
> > >> LTS
> > >> > >> releases long past the official OSS support window. This went on
> for
> > >> a
> > >> > >> super long time with 2.4, and even in 3.5 we see much longer
> vendor
> > >> LTS
> > >> > >> periods support of 3.5 in Databricks dropping in 2028, Amazon in
> > >> 2027,
> > >> > >> etc.  If 2.4 is any indication, these might slip out even longer.
> > >> > >>
> > >> > >> If we did security-only fixes for an additional 24 months after
> the
> > >> end
> > >> > >> of bug-fix period, it would let us poll our resources for
> security
> > >> > >> maintenance.
> > >> > >>
> > >> > >> Cheers,
> > >> > >>
> > >> > >> Holden
> > >> > >>
> > >> > >> --
> > >> > >> Twitter: https://twitter.com/holdenkarau
> > >> > >> Fight Health Insurance: https://www.fighthealthinsurance.com/
> > >> > >> <https://www.fighthealthinsurance.com/?q=hk_email>
> > >> > >> Books (Learning Spark, High Performance Spark, etc.):
> > >> > >> https://amzn.to/2MaRAG9  <https://amzn.to/2MaRAG9>
> > >> > >> YouTube Live Streams: https://www.youtube.com/user/holdenkarau
> > >> > >> Pronouns: she/her
> > >> > >>
> > >> > >
> > >> >
> > >>
> > >> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
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> > >>
> > >>
> > >
> > > --
> > > John Zhuge
> > >
> >
> >
> > --
> > Twitter: https://twitter.com/holdenkarau
> > Fight Health Insurance: https://www.fighthealthinsurance.com/
> > <https://www.fighthealthinsurance.com/?q=hk_email>
> > Books (Learning Spark, High Performance Spark, etc.):
> > https://amzn.to/2MaRAG9  <https://amzn.to/2MaRAG9>
> > YouTube Live Streams: https://www.youtube.com/user/holdenkarau
> > Pronouns: she/her
> >
>
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