Upgrade to Spring Boot `2.7.18`

[jxblum]

I understand that CloudEvents is firmly rooted on a Java 8 baseline.

It is also true that the entire Spring Boot 2.x generation is based on Java 8 (see here).

CloudEvents' Spring integration significantly lags behind at version 2.4.3, and not even the latest 2.4.x release at that (which is 2.4.13). Although, it is a moot point given 2.4.x as been out of OSS (2021-11-18) and Commercial (2023-02-23) Support for some time now (click "more" to expand the list).

Technically, even Spring Boot 2.7.x is out of OSS support, as of 2023-06-30. While Commercial support does not end until 2029-06-30, it does require users/customers to buy a commercial license to contract the Spring team to patch the 2.7.x release line. Without commercial support, there will simply be no more patch (maintenance) releases to the 2.7.x release line.

It is strongly recommended to upgrade to, or at least provide a version of CloudEvents for, Spring Boot 3.x, based on Java 17.

Java 17 is a LTS version, as is Java 21. Java 24 is already available. Spring Boot 4.0 is on the horizon.

[jacekbilski]

As you've said it yourself, 2.7.x is already out of OSS support, but version 5.0 supports Spring Boot 3, and an upcoming 5.1 or 6.0 version will support Spring Boot 4. Since 5.0 the baseline is also set to Java 17. AFAIK there are currently no plans to go for Java 21 or 25, most other major libraries/frameworks are still on 17.