It’s true experience for some users may gradually degrade as related projects gradually drop 3.5 support, personally I suspect they’ll probably continue for awhile as we saw with 2.4.
It’s up to each person to figure out what their environment requires and how to prioritize their upgrade. 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 On Wed, Feb 25, 2026 at 11:43 PM Mridul Muralidharan <[email protected]> wrote: > > If Apache Spark supports an LTS version while its sister projects, > managed by the Spark PMC do not, it would result in a poor end user > experience. > The larger ecosystem will ofcourse have its own support matrix. > > Regards, > Mridul > > > On Wed, Feb 25, 2026 at 3:48 PM Holden Karau <[email protected]> > wrote: > >> I've updated the doc with "The scope of the LTS is limited to Spark >> itself and does not apply to related/sister projects (like Spark on K8s >> operator)." Just checking in to make sure conversation is settled and it's >> an ok time to bring this forward to a vote (if folks have more thoughts I >> want to give them time to bring them up). >> >> On Mon, Feb 16, 2026 at 9:39 AM Holden Karau <[email protected]> >> wrote: >> >>> Good points, responses in-line :) >>> >>> 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 >>> >>> >>> On Sat, Feb 14, 2026 at 3:32 PM Dongjoon Hyun <[email protected]> >>> wrote: >>> >>>> Hi Holden, >>>> >>>> Thank you for your passion and for keeping this thread up to date. I >>>> truly appreciate it. >>>> >>>> This situation is a bit tricky, as it exponentially increases the >>>> maintenance burden for the following reasons: >>>> >>>> (1) Legacy Tech Stack Support: This would require us to support Java 8, >>>> Scala 2.12, Python 3.8, and SparkR. For instance, I don’t believe we can >>>> maintain PySpark 3.5 on Python 3.8 at our previously promised service >>>> level. We would definitely need to downgrade the support level, and this >>>> must be made crystal clear to the community. >>>> >>>> (2) Impact on Subprojects: It adds a significant burden to all Apache >>>> Spark subprojects, such as the Apache K8s Operator and Spark Connect >>>> clients (Swift/Go/Rust). For example, while Spark 3.5 must support K8s >>>> 1.24+, Spark 4.0 targets K8s 1.30+. The extended period effectively locks >>>> us into supporting older K8s versions that are no longer available from >>>> major public cloud vendors. >>>> >>> This is an interesting consideration. I think we can scope this down to >>> Spark itself, and Spark subprojects can make their own decision as they >>> have their own release cadence broadley speaking -- but we should make that >>> clear in the documentation. >>> >>>> >>>> (3) Ecosystem-wide Pressure: This also places constraints on >>>> Spark-related ASF sister projects like Iceberg, Parquet, ORC, Celeborn, >>>> Gluten, and Comet. While the final decision rests with them, I believe they >>>> need to be informed of our strategic direction. >>>> >>> This is a good point. I think we can reach out to their dev lists once >>> we've reached an in-project consensus. >>> >>>> >>>> To provide extended community support responsibly, we need at least >>>> three clearly defined components: >>>> >>>> (a) A predefined extension period (Confirmed) >>>> (b) A predefined pool of Release Managers (Holden has volunteered) >>>> (c) A predefined release cadence (Currently unknown as discussed so far) >>>> >>>> Regarding (c), I believe we can keep it simple, similar to the Apache >>>> Spark 4.x preview releases. Currently, Hyukjin has successfully managed all >>>> previews by leveraging automation, with the only exception being >>>> 4.1.0-preview4, which I assisted with. For 3.5.x, we should maintain the >>>> same cadence as before. Perhaps Holden could manage a release every four >>>> months if there are new patches on branch-3.5. Of course, other community >>>> members can assist as well. >>>> >>> I think 4 months is a reasonable cadence, but we'd only bother with a >>> release, of course, if there is a new security issue. >>> >>>> >>>> Sincerely, >>>> Dongjoon Hyun >>>> >>>> On 2026/02/13 19:27:48 Holden Karau wrote: >>>> > I wasn’t super sure about that, I know the initial proposal was a >>>> little >>>> > sparse for some so I figured I’d make it a bit more formal and follow >>>> the >>>> > SPIP process like we did with the overall release process change. >>>> > >>>> > 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 >>>> > >>>> > >>>> > On Thu, Feb 12, 2026 at 11:58 PM Wenchen Fan <[email protected]> >>>> wrote: >>>> > >>>> > > This is a procedure change, not a code change, do we need SPIP? >>>> Anyway, +1 >>>> > > to the proposal! >>>> > > >>>> > > On Thu, Feb 12, 2026 at 6:28 AM Holden Karau < >>>> [email protected]> >>>> > > wrote: >>>> > > >>>> > >> This is a more formal (but still a discussion level thread) >>>> proposing an >>>> > >> extended 3.5 LTS window to allow for people to complete their >>>> migrations >>>> > >> given the less than one year between 4.0 release and 3.5 EOL. >>>> > >> >>>> > >> The draft SPIP is >>>> > >> >>>> https://docs.google.com/document/d/15fb-7DNztzpQMF1MQovK75UmpC6um7KgO8cg_X5oa1I/edit?usp=sharing >>>> > >> and the JIRA SPARK-55489 >>>> > >> <https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/SPARK-55489> >>>> > >> >>>> > >> Previous discussion was: >>>> > >> https://lists.apache.org/thread/4r6q8187b30p0ppclw0pyfjp8h8xs3rq >>>> > >> >>>> > >> 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 >>>> > >> >>>> > > >>>> > >>>> >>>> --------------------------------------------------------------------- >>>> To unsubscribe e-mail: [email protected] >>>> >>>> >> >> -- >> 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 >> >
