Hi all,

Java 7 has not been supported in Jenkins LTS since 2.60.1, which was
released almost 2 years ago (June 27, 2017). Over past two years, a
majority of plugins updated their requirements to 2.60.3 and above, and
there are only few exceptions in top-50 plugins (Mailer, Git Client, Git
Server, Pipeline: Stage Step, Pipeline: REST API). First 3 plugins are also
about moving to 2.60.x+ because of the ongoing work on JCasc plugin support
in these plugins. I think it is a time to discuss phasing out Java 7
support in our development tools.

*Why?*

   - Not all upstream libraries still support Java 7 (e.g. Animal Sniffer
   1.18 in this PR <https://github.com/jenkinsci/plugin-pom/pull/200>). So
   we cannot update newest patches, including ones which might be required for
   JDK 11 support in our build tools
   - We have some dependencies and profiles specific to Java 7. It
   increases the maintenance cost
   - While we support Java 7, It is harder to include new dependencies and
   improve our test frameworks

*What do I propose to change?*

   - Drop Java 7 and Jenkins 2.59- support in Plugin POM
   <https://github.com/jenkinsci/plugin-pom>
   - Drop Java 7 support from Jenkins parent POM
   <https://github.com/jenkinsci/pom> (one we use for core and its libs)
   - Drop Java 7 support from Jenkins Test Harness, bump the target core to
   2.60.3.
      - It will allow us to extend the test frameworks, e.g. by embedding
      JCasC support there (e.g. this benchmarking PR
      <https://github.com/jenkinsci/jenkins-test-harness/pull/135> by
      Abhyudaya)
   - Drop Java 7 support in Docker Fixtures and other test libraries we
   maintain in the Jenkins community
   - Drop Java 7 support and old Core support from Plugin Compat Teste
   <https://github.com/jenkinsci/plugin-compat-tester>r, if feasible
   - Remove 2.59- test conditions and checks from Jenkins Acceptance Test
   Harness <https://github.com/jenkinsci/acceptance-test-harness>
   - ... // and so on

Such phase out could be done incrementally when maintainers or contributors
are interested to do so. I would consider this thread as giving a green
light to whomever wants to drop old Java version support from Dev tools.

Would appreciate feedback.

Best regards,
Oleg

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