Re: RFC: Make new versions of pgjdbc Java8+

I strongly support the drop of old Java versions, and I'm one that thinks
we should use the latest and greatest version of Java :-) but, for much I
want to that happen it's hard to simply "drop" 2 Java version at once.

This is a real story: For much sad that it looks, I known of some apps
running still on Java 1.4, (yes, 1.4) on a WebSphere 6.0 platform (J2EE
1.4) and the management is not willing to migrate (yet) to a modern Java EE
7 (WildFly) with Java 8, the DBA in charge have been able to handle the
upgrade of the database up to 9.3 and now it's going to 9.6 soon... but as
some may be aware, the latest JDBC driver version for Java 1.4 is PgJDBC 9.1
Build 903, so there is a risk that some "features" don't work (or might
break), even using just plain old JDBC. So it's not just that simple to
drop a version and expect to migrate to the latest version of Java, there
are factors beyond developers and DBAs.

Now let's get some facts:

- The PgJDBC project is *ultra-conservative*, there is still support for
PostgreSQL *8.2* which the EOL was on Dec 2011, I think that up to 8.4
would make sense and even a more radical approach to follow the EOL of the
server itself (drop support for Pg9.1 and lower) it's for me acceptable,
most people that use ancient PostgreSQL versions uses ancient driver
versions, and it's not common to update the driver for those versions
anyway.
- The limited resources/voluntary work, makes hard to have support for
many branches, so the "dead" of a version means no fixes/backports to that
version anymore, it's a linear development where there is no look back, if
Java 6 and/or Java 7 is dropped, it means the last version that supported
them are "frozen" and any potential bug will be there forever.
- The End of Public Updates
<https://blogs.oracle.com/java/end-of-public-updates-for-java-se-6>
of *Oracle
JDK* 6 was on Feb 2013, *but* there is an "premier" and "extended"
support <http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/eol-135779.html> (paid
of course) where the "extended" ends on Dec 2018.
- If you ask me, we should stick to the "premier" support dates for the
PgJDBC, so basically Java 6 should have died in Dec 2015.
- Following the "premier" support, Java 7 should be dropped until Jul
2019.
- The Oracle JDK it's not the only JDK so the End of Public Updates from
Oracle should not dictate the kill of a Java version, there is OpenJDK.
- The OpenJDK/IcedTea team, drop support for Java 6
<http://blog.fuseyism.com/index.php/2017/01/11/discontinuation-of-support-for-icedtea-1-x/>
just recently.
- The Azul Zulu <http://zulu.org/> team still supports Java 6 (at least
I haven't hear the drop of support).

So +1 for drop support for Java 6, and -1 for drop support for Java 7.
And BTW, a drop of a Java version should increase the major version of the
driver, so when that happens it should be called 43.0.0

Regards,

Jorge Solórzano
me.jorsol.com