Hello Kafka users, developers and client-developers, This is the first candidate for release of Apache Kafka 4.0.0. We still have some remaining blockers but we figured that getting a first release candidate will help the community to test this major release.
- This is the first release without Apache Zookeeper - The Next Generation of the Consumer Rebalance Protocol is Generally Available - The Transactions Server-Side Defense (Phase 2) is Generally Available - Queues for Kafka is in Early Access - Kafka uses log4j2 - Drop broker and tools support for Java 11 - Remove old client protocol API versions Release notes for the 4.0.0 release: https://dist.apache.org/repos/dist/dev/kafka/4.0.0-rc0/RELEASE_NOTES.html *** Please download and test the release. Voting is not necessary as we still have blockers. Kafka's KEYS file containing PGP keys we use to sign the release: https://kafka.apache.org/KEYS * Release artifacts to be voted upon (source and binary): https://dist.apache.org/repos/dist/dev/kafka/4.0.0-rc0/ * Docker release artifacts to be voted upon: apache/kafka:4.0.0-rc0 apache/kafka-native:4.0.0-rc0 (Building the native image failed, I need to investigate it) * Maven artifacts to be voted upon: https://repository.apache.org/content/groups/staging/org/apache/kafka/ * Javadoc: https://dist.apache.org/repos/dist/dev/kafka/4.0.0-rc0/javadoc/ * Tag to be voted upon (off 4.0 branch) is the 4.0.0 tag: https://github.com/apache/kafka/releases/tag/4.0.0-rc0 * Documentation: https://kafka.apache.org/40/documentation.html * Protocol: https://kafka.apache.org/40/protocol.html * Successful CI builds for the 4.0 branch: Unit/integration tests: https://github.com/apache/kafka/actions/runs/13459676207 System tests: TBD * Successful Docker Image Github Actions Pipeline for 4.0 branch: Docker Build Test Pipeline (JVM): https://github.com/apache/kafka/actions/runs/13471603921 Docker Build Test Pipeline (Native): https://github.com/apache/kafka/actions/runs/13471605941 /************************************** Thanks, David
