On 18/05/2017 03:23, Josh Soref wrote:
A client of my employers wanted to know how much life our chosen
application hosting platform has left.
I found Mark's email [1] which suggested tomcat 6 eol [2]. That page says:
The Apache Tomcat team announces that support for Apache Tomcat 6.0.x will end
on 31 December 2016.
Three months later (i.e. after 30 March 2017)
[ long list of things that haven't happened ]
I did a quick check and re-discovered the latest 6.0 release [3]:
Version 6.0.53, Apr 2 2017
(I was actually subscribed to the ML at that time.)
I understand that it's impossible to fully predict EOL (Windows XP
just got an update even though it's supposed to be mostly buried...).
It seems to me that it might be helpful if the 6 EOL notice [2] were
updated to at least mention that there was a release in April which
means that the EOL won't be until July, and that people should check
[3] and add three months to get a better sense of when the other items
in the page might trigger.
For clarity.
Tomcat 6 has reached end if life. The releases this year were to address
security issues we knew about before 31 Dec 2016. We could have just
ignored them for 6.0.x but we choose not to.
The release annoucements for the 2 Tomcat 6 releases this year both made
it clear that 6.0.x had already reached end of life.
The various clean-up tasks have started. Bugzilla is closed for entry of
new 6.0.x bugs. We are working through the open 6.0.x bugs. In the past
we have just transferred them to the latest current Tomcat version. This
time we are looking at them a little more closely. Fixing those we think
it makes sense to fix. Marking the others as WONTFIX.
The remaining clean-up tasks will happen as folks find them time to do them.
That said. My original question in case someone has an answer is:
what's a distant date I can reasonably tell someone else that tomcat
7.0 will still be supported?
We have always said that we'll give at least 12 months notice.
We have also said we'll support 3 version in parallel and that major
versions are tied to Java EE versions.
That means 7.0.x EOL will be aligned (roughly) with releases starting
for Tomcat 10 which in turn will be after Java EE 9 is final. Java EE 9
is currently scheduled for next year but Java EE timescales have been
somewhat flexible in the past and I see no reason for that to change
going forward.
My best guess right now is that Java EE 9 will land no earlier than June
2019. We are unlikely to announce Tomcat 7 EOL until there is a
reasonable amount of certainly in the Java EE 9 date so EOL for Tomcat
would be somewhere between 31 Dec 2019 and 31 Dec 2020. If my
assumptions about Java EE 9 are wrong and it is delivered by June 2018,
Tomcat 7 EOL could be as early as 31 Dec 2018.
To put it another way.
- If it hasn't been announced when you read this, it will be at least
12 months away
- Right now, the earliest possible EOL date is 31 Dec 2018
- Right now, the most likely range in 31 Dec 2019 to 31 Dec 2020
- If Java EE 9 experiences simiar delays to Java EE 8, it could be
several years later still
I appreciate the uncertainly isn't ideal but it is a direct consequence
of the decision (which I think does make sense) to tie the major Tomcat
version to the Java EE version.
Mark
The document I'm working from suggests 2018, but [1] mentioned 2020.
(I hope we'll be able to at least move to 7.5 as opposed to 7.0, but
I'm not the person responsible for application development, so I'm not
really in a position to guarantee any such change...)
Thanks.
[1] http://marc.info/?l=tomcat-user&m=144774572025583&w=2#1
[2] http://tomcat.apache.org/tomcat-60-eol.html
[3] http://tomcat.apache.org/tomcat-6.0-doc/changelog.html
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