From dev-return-83449-apmail-ant-dev-archive=ant.apache.org@ant.apache.org Sun Oct 19 12:36:14 2008 Return-Path: Delivered-To: apmail-ant-dev-archive@www.apache.org Received: (qmail 57648 invoked from network); 19 Oct 2008 12:36:14 -0000 Received: from hermes.apache.org (HELO mail.apache.org) (140.211.11.2) by minotaur.apache.org with SMTP; 19 Oct 2008 12:36:14 -0000 Received: (qmail 39684 invoked by uid 500); 19 Oct 2008 12:36:15 -0000 Delivered-To: apmail-ant-dev-archive@ant.apache.org Received: (qmail 39645 invoked by uid 500); 19 Oct 2008 12:36:14 -0000 Mailing-List: contact dev-help@ant.apache.org; run by ezmlm Precedence: bulk List-Unsubscribe: List-Help: List-Post: List-Id: "Ant Developers List" Reply-To: "Ant Developers List" Delivered-To: mailing list dev@ant.apache.org Received: (qmail 39634 invoked by uid 99); 19 Oct 2008 12:36:14 -0000 Received: from athena.apache.org (HELO athena.apache.org) (140.211.11.136) by apache.org (qpsmtpd/0.29) with ESMTP; Sun, 19 Oct 2008 05:36:14 -0700 X-ASF-Spam-Status: No, hits=-0.0 required=10.0 tests=SPF_PASS X-Spam-Check-By: apache.org Received-SPF: pass (athena.apache.org: local policy) Received: from [194.109.24.33] (HELO smtp-vbr13.xs4all.nl) (194.109.24.33) by apache.org (qpsmtpd/0.29) with ESMTP; Sun, 19 Oct 2008 12:35:05 +0000 Received: from ubuntu.jkf (kruithof.xs4all.nl [82.95.101.186]) by smtp-vbr13.xs4all.nl (8.13.8/8.13.8) with ESMTP id m9JCZBfd097872 for ; Sun, 19 Oct 2008 14:35:11 +0200 (CEST) (envelope-from jm@kruithof.xs4all.nl) Received: from asus.lan ([192.168.1.67]) by ubuntu.jkf with esmtp (Exim 4.63) (envelope-from ) id 1KrXV1-0004Cj-6J for dev@ant.apache.org; Sun, 19 Oct 2008 14:35:11 +0200 Message-ID: <48FB297F.1070409@kruithof.xs4all.nl> Date: Sun, 19 Oct 2008 14:35:11 +0200 From: Martijn Kruithof User-Agent: Thunderbird 2.0.0.17 (Windows/20080914) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Ant Developers List Subject: Re: Java version required for trunk References: In-Reply-To: Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-Virus-Scanned: by XS4ALL Virus Scanner X-Virus-Checked: Checked by ClamAV on apache.org Hello I know i have not been really active for some time now (changed house, then job) yet I manage to remember previous discussions. I still feel that the following reasoning is flawed: >> There has been some discussion about dropping support for Java 1.3 in >> trunk. One of the aguments against it was that 1.4 doesn't offer >> anything new and going from 1.3 to Java5 was too big a step. >> I do think the problem is that we cannot support a whole lot of java versions for every new version of ant, just because of the amount of work associated with testing it all. The choice should not only be based on what new language features are offered by a java version, but also the number of java version we have to test against. If companies/projects/products have a good reason to stay with older java versions, the older version of ant that is supported has done all this time, and I think we should expect from companies that stay with older java versions that these companies shall bear the consequence of not being able to run the newest ant. Maybe we should consider dropping java versions even somewhat faster, I don't see the point in supporting java versions that SUN does not support anymore for the general public. From the sun website: http://java.sun.com/products/archive/eol.policy.html Revised (Current) Java SE Support Road map Release Family GA Date EOL Notification EOSL Support Period 1.4 February, 2002 December, 2006 October 30, 2008 6 ½ years ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 5.0 May, 2004 April, 2008 October 30, 2009 5 ½ years ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 6 December, 2006 2009* 2010* 4 years* These dates seem to be reasonable to stop supporting the corresponding java release in an upcoming ant release (if ant 1.8 appears after october 30, 2008 the 1.8 range should support 5.0 and 6 and possibly 7) We in turn we could consider to prolong the life of the point releases for critical updates to have at lease one ant version operating with the java version upto the state EOSL from SUN. Bugs eligible to be solved on the point releases after a new major release has been done would have to come from customers running a java version that is not supported by a more recent ant release, running a java version that is still supported by SUN, these should also be real bugs, not feature requests, and the company shall have to test the ant release towards the old java version and provide us the logs, especially if we do not have the possibility to run the old java version anymore. (This because I am quite sure that in 10 years java 1.4 won't be running anymore on the "current" hardware and operating systems.) Java SE for Business support road map Release Family GA Date EOL Notification* EOL* EOSL* Support Period 1.4 February, 2002 April, 2008 April, 2013 April, 2018 16 years ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 5.0 May, 2004 June, 2009 June, 2014 June, 2019 15 years ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 6 December, 2006 June, 2011 June, 2016 June, 2021 15 years br Martijn --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: dev-unsubscribe@ant.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: dev-help@ant.apache.org