We are planning to migrate our old legacy code which uses commons-httpclient-3.x to httpclient5.x . But found that its going to be complete rewrite as lot of classes/packages removed.
Tried migrating to httpclient4.x , seems to be having lesser changes compared to 5.x migration.
But want to know the support plan for 4.x and 5.x from apache/community. As per maven repo, last release on 4.x was on Oct - 2020 where as 5.x was Jan - 2022
Can i expect fixes/code changes in 4.x for the next 4/5 years atleast if i use it instead of 5.x?
Please share if anyone has idea on this.
I posted the same in apache httpclients forum. I got replies.
Reply from 'Oleg' (one of active members in apache httpclient community)
Both branches will continue to be supported, especially 5.1 and 5.2. The reason for last releases being so far in the past is simply we have not been getting that many bug reports and there have been no major bug fixes that would warrant an immediate release.
5.1 and 5.2 releases though can be expected soon.
Can i expect fixes/code changes in 4.x for the next 4/5 years atleast if i use it instead of 5.x?
We are all volunteers here. No one is gets paid for providing HttpClient support. We can all go away any time. That is the whole support plan.
One thing I can guarantee however that there will be no feature development for 4.5 any more. We will likely be doing fixes for severe and security issues in 4.5 going forward.
Reply from Michael Osipov
At some point in time we need to decide when to cut off 4.x. I don't see a reason to keep this branch alive for the next five years. Given that very little work on this project it would make sense to reduce the amount of supported branches.
Reply from Gary Gregory
The sooner the better for a 4.x cut off IMO. There is a lot of complex code in total for versions 3, 4, 5, and very limited human resources.
In Short: We can safely migrate to 5.x. I guess this answers for many developers who are looking for an answer like me.