Howdy, I'd just like to draft some cornerstones and once agreement is reached, to inform the wider public with another mail to Users ML.
# Maven 3.8.x (current version 3.8.6) It is our latest "stable" release, mature, and widely used in public. The moment the 3.9.0 is released, it becomes "obsolete". There is NO PLAN to release any more 3.8,x version of Maven, unless some BIG-BUG is reported against it (that has no other circumvention than code change), which I doubt will happen. This implies: maven-3.8.x branch is FROZEN - no direct pushes - only quorum accepted changes: PR w/ quorum or JIRA w/ attached patch + quorum :) - don't waste time creating PR against it, UNLESS it is about the above mentioned "big bug". As mentioned above, NO PLANS for more releases. # Maven 3.9.x (soon 3.9.0) This will become the latest "stable" release soon (and followed by bugfix minor versions). The major reason for doing the 3.9.x line was to catch-up, as many Maven dependencies went Java 8. One notable example is Maven Resolver, Maven was lagging behind a lot. Maven Resolver was made Java 8 from the 1.7.x version, latest is 1.9.0, while Maven 3.8.x was Java 7, hence it could not benefit from new major features of the latest Resolver. One of the major change in Maven 3.9.x is upping it to Java 8, which I'm sure is not a problem for most of our users (if older Java is a must, they can stick with older Maven as well, or they can use toolchains, so many options are there). I bet in a sixpack that Resolver new features have things to be fixed, so resolver 1.9.1, 1.9.2 etc will be inevitable, hence Maven 3.9.1, 3.9.2 may be required as well, but hopefully, Maven itself should be pretty much rock stable (as it is effectively the "mature" 3.8.x on Java 8). The other point of 3.9.0 is really to give us some "leeway", and possibly 3.9.1, 3.9.2 etc will not bind too much of our resources from our major focus. This implies: maven-3.9.x branch is PROTECTED - no direct pushes - only quorum accepted changes: PR w/ quorum or JIRA w/ attached patch + quorum :) - soon to be released from it - IMHO, no new features as well (exceptions are the "ongoing" changes, like "save the trees on CI builds" and others). Similarly, I hope mvnd 0.9.0 release is planned that would use Maven 3.9.0. # Maven 4.0.0 (currently 4.0.0-alpha2) Should become our major focus. This implies: master branch is PROTECTED - no direct pushes - only quorum accepted changes: PR w/ quorum or JIRA w/ attached patch + quorum :) - release from branch already happened (alpha2), and soon to be released from it again (alpha3) TL;DR: maven-3.8.x branch: stay out of it UNLESS fixing "big bug" found in 3.8.x w/ circumvention possible other than code change maven-3.9.x branch: stay out of it UNLESS you work on already "in progress" changes, don't start new major feature (again, UNLESS quorum decides that we want to) master: our focus WDYT? T
