David,
On 11/4/21 09:50, David J Pearson wrote:
Hi - What are the end of life / end of support dates for v8.5 and v9
please ?
No dates have been announced.
Typically, the Tomcat team will support 3 concurrent versions of Tomcat.
Right now, those are 10.0, 9.0, and 8.5.
Tomcat 10.0 implements the requisite parts of Jakarta EE 9, and the
biggest change there (other than many version-number bumps of various
specifications) is that many of the javax.* packages have been re-named
to be jakarta.*[1]. This means that older applications will not run on
the new server version. Except that Tomcat has a built-in
application-re-writer that will allow you to drop an old application
into Tomcat 10 and it should Just Work.
Tomcat 10.1 will implement the servlet spec 6.0 as well as new versions
of the other services provided by Tomcat (i.e. JSP, EL, Websocket,
JASPIC) and be the first to require a JVM beyond Java 8 (which is a part
of the specification requirements, not a Tomcat preference). It looks
like this will be either Jakarta EE 9.1 or Jakarta EE 10.
Tomcat 10.1 won't be official until Servlet 6 and the other
specifications are finalized. Servlet 6.0 was finalized on October 15th
of this year, and work has already begun to incorporate those features,
etc. (which don't conflict in any way) into Tomcat 10.0. But the JSP and
EL specs aren't finished, and the Websocket and JASPIC version numbers
haven't yet been identified.
Given that there is still some question as to the requirements for
Tomcat 10.1, a release-date for it is not yet known.
Tomcat typically gives a 12-month notification before EOL of any major
version of Tomcat. Also note that the retired version is not always the
oldest version available. It's entirely possible that when Tomcat 10.1
becomes stable, we will elect to retire Tomcat 10.0 before Tomcat 8.5.
So, back to your original question: when will 8.5 and 9.0 reach EOL?
Well, definitely not before November 2022 that's for sure. But most
likely Tomcat 10.1 will replace Tomcat 10.0, and when Tomcat 10.1+ is
released, that will mark the 1-year countdown for Tomcat 8.5. And when
Tomcat 10.1++ is released, that will mark the 1-year countdown for
Tomcat 9.0.
So, looking into my crystal ball, I would wildly guess (I would like to
stress that this is NOT an official announcement or any schedule
whatsoever) the following schedule:
Q1 or Q2 2022 - Tomcat 10.1 is released
Q1 or Q2 2022 - Tomcat 10.0 EOL is announced for Q1 or Q2 2023
Q1 or Q2 2023 - Tomcat 10.0 reaches EOL
2023 - 2024 - Tomcat 11 (?) is released
2023 - 2024 - Tomcat 8.5 EOL is announced for 2024/2025
2024/2025 - Tomcat 12 (?) is released
2024/2025 - Tomcat 8.5 reaches EOL
2024/2025 - Java 8 remains wildly popular, as does Java EE 8, so Tomcat
9.0 lives on potentially indefinitely
2026 - Tomcat 13 (?) is released
2026 - Tomcat 11 EOL is announced to be 2027
... and so on
So if you are running an old application on Tomcat 8.5, I would plan to
upgrade to 9.0 at your leisure, and expect a good long life out of it.
I would also strongly encourage you to try out the Magical Migration
Tool and see if your application runs without modification on Tomcat
10.x. If it does, and you intend to actually _maintain_ your
application, then you can begin the slow process of re-working all your
source code to use the new API specifications, knowing that Tomcat will
be able to deploy your hybrid application at any time. Eventually, you
will be completely transitioned to the Jakarta EE APIs and you can
continue to follow Tomcat's upgrades post-10.0.
If you are implementing a new product, I would go directly to Tomcat
10.x and use the new API package names, etc.
I hope that helps,
-chris
[1]
https://eclipse-ee4j.github.io/jakartaee-platform/jakartaee9/JakartaEE9ReleasePlan
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