Hi all,

Now that 3.9.0 is released and 4.0.x is progressing, I'd like to understand
everyone's expectations about the 3.9.x branch, and ask for a specific
consensus on Java 23 support.

Some context that I think is relevant to the discussion:
* KIP-1006 [1] proposes a backwards-compatible strategy for handling the
ongoing removal of the SecurityManager, which is merged and due to release
in 4.0.0 [2].
* KIP-1012 [3] rejected ongoing parallel feature development on a 3.x
branch while having trunk on 4.x.
* During the 3.9.0 release, the patch [2] was rejected [4] due to being a
new feature which did not meet the feature freeze deadline.
* Other than the SecurityManager removal, there are additional PRs which
would also need to be backported for full Java 23 support [5] including a
Scala patch upgrade.
* Downstream users are asking for a backport [6] because adding support for
Java 23 would obligate them to also include the 4.0 breaking changes.

So while adding Java version support in the past has been a KIP-less
feature and normally only appears in the next version, it happens to align
with a major version bump this time. This will cause additional pain for
users if we do not elect to backport this.

Thanks,
Greg

[1]
https://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/display/KAFKA/KIP-1006%3A+Remove+SecurityManager+Support
[2] https://github.com/apache/kafka/pull/16522
[3]
https://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/display/KAFKA/KIP-1012%3A+The+need+for+a+Kafka+3.8+and+3.9+release
[4] https://lists.apache.org/thread/xy5rwd1w274qgpwf3qxxnzlqpoly5d4p
[5] https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/KAFKA-17638
[6] https://github.com/apache/kafka/pull/16522#issuecomment-2488340682

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