You might have heard the news already: JDK 9 is going to be delayed by half a year, now aiming for a March 2017 release instead of its original September 2016 target.

Since Spring 5 is designed to track JDK 9 very closely, we decided to revisit our own roadmap as well: We are nevertheless going to start our release candidate phase in Q4 2016 but we won't go GA before March 2017 either. That said, we really mean it: The goal is for Spring Framework 5.0 to go GA right after JDK 9's GA date then.

The opportunity for you to start working with Spring 5 features will begin much sooner anyway, with…

Even if I pointed out that there are no general news in terms of Java EE 7 platform adoption in last week's blog post (since there is still no WebSphere Classic, WebLogic, JBoss EAP or even TomEE with full EE 7 support), the two existing open-source EE 7 platform servers - namely, GlassFish and WildFly - made some fine progress in the meantime:

• There's a GlassFish 4.1.1 release now, with many sub-project updates - including Tyrus for its WebSocket support.
• And the WildFly team rushes from major release to major release, arriving at WildFly 10 GA very soon now. The underlying Undertow web server reached 1.3 GA just a few days ago.
…

A reminder: Every time somebody shows you a survey result with a Java EE 7 usage column, in particular when talking about production usage, double-check what they actually asked for. Does Hibernate 4.3 usage count as Java EE 7, just because it's JPA 2.1 (EE 7 level but run standalone)? Does Tomcat 8 usage count as Java EE 7, just because it's Servlet 3.1? And of course, does running a Spring application with any such individual providers count as EE 7?

Take such statistics with a big grain of salt: They typically do not ask for "native Java EE 7 platform usage" but are being presented that way eventually. Why is it a safe assumption that they did not ask for full Java EE 7 platform usage in production? Well, remember my blog post from back in June, which is still as valid in late 2015. In the meantime, the only real news is that there is no news since IBM released their EE 7 support in WebSphere's Liberty Profile. All in all, responders to such survey…

As a follow-up to the Spring Framework 4.2 GA announcement and also to my earlier post on Spring Framework 5 system requirements, I'd like to take the opportunity to summarize our core framework plans for next year:

#Spring Framework 4.3

First up will be Spring Framework 4.3 in Q2 2016, as a final feature release in the 4.x series. As mentioned, this will still be designed for the general Spring 4 system requirements (Java 6+, Servlet 2.5+) and getting prepared for an extended 4.3.x support life until 2019, in particular for users on JDK 6 and 7 but also for applications deployed to older app…

Dear Spring community,

It's my pleasure to announce that Spring Framework 4.2 is now generally available from repo.spring.io as well as Maven Central! This is a feature release in the 4.x line, compatible with Java 6 and 7 as well as Java 8, with a focus on core refinements and modern web capabilities:

• Annotation detection on Java 8 default methods (e.g. @Bean)
• Annotation-based application events (@EventListener)
• First-class support for annotation attribute aliases (@AliasFor)
• Full nested path processing for direct field binding
• Data binding and conversion for JSR-354 Money & Currency
• Integration with Hibernate ORM 5.0 (natively and via JPA)
• Standards-based bean scripting via JSR-223 (JRuby, JavaScript)
• JSR-223 based web views (with a focus on JavaScript on Nashorn)
• Rich support for CORS and declarative HTTP caching
• First-class support for HTTP Streaming and Server-Sent Events
• CompletableFuture for handler methods and @Async…

Dear Spring community,

Spring Framework 4.2 is not going GA today quite yet, but it's almost there: RC3 is available from repo.spring.io now, as a last release candidate before we reach GA on the 30th of July. This release includes 50 fixes and improvements over RC2, waiting for you to try them!

We decided to do another release candidate for several reasons: e.g. our continued wait for Jackson 2.6 final and Hibernate ORM 5.0 final but also our recent build upgrade to Gradle 2.5 and some last-minute refinements within our 4.2 web story (based on RC1/RC2 feedback).

I'm pleased to announce that this is in fact the first release of Spring which builds fine not only on JDK 8 but also on current JDK 9 snapshots! Our master build…

Spring is well-known to actively support the latest versions of common open source projects out there, e.g. Hibernate and Jackson but also common server engines such as Tomcat and Jetty. We usually do this in a backwards-compatible fashion, supporting older versions at the same time - either through reflective adaptation or through separate support packages. This allows for applications to selectively decide about upgrades, e.g. upgrading to the latest Spring and Jackson versions while preserving an existing Hibernate 3 investment.

With the upcoming Spring Framework 4.2, we are taking the…

Dear Spring community,

I'm pleased to announce that the Spring Framework 4.1.7 and 3.2.14 maintenance releases are available now. Aside from fixing various minor issues across the framework, these releases also address an XML parsing vulnerability through disabling DTD processing by default when parsing untrusted XML input in Spring MVC endpoints.

Note that Spring Framework 3.2.x has its End-of-Life scheduled for December 31, 2016. Based on demand and vulnerability reports, further maintenance releases will be made available up until then. At the same time, we strongly recommend a migration to Spring Framework 4.1.7 or the upcoming 4.2…

Dear Spring community,

The Spring team hereby announces that the Spring Framework 3.2.x line will reach End-Of-Life status at the end of 2016 (along with Apache Tomcat 6.x). We keep publishing occasional 3.2.x maintenance releases up until that point and will then end the branch.

Please prepare for upgrading to Spring Framework 4.x in time. The current Spring Framework 4 generation will remain in active maintenance until 2019, based on the upcoming 4.3 feature release next year - similar to the extended life that 3.2.x is in at the moment.

FYI, we expect Spring Framework 5.0 to be generally available by Q4 2016, requiring JDK 8+. If you need to stay on JDK 6 or 7, Spring Framework 4.x…

As you might have gathered from my Java EE 7 blog post, we are planning for a Spring Framework 5.0 generation with a 2016 availability horizon. We'll be tracking JDK 9's release candidates then since one of our key themes is comprehensive JDK 9 support.

The feature planning for Spring 5 is still in the works. We are going to present a more in-depth plan at SpringOne this year, so stay tuned! Nevertheless, I would like to take this opportunity to reach out to you for feedback about our intended system requirements:

We will definitely raise our minimum to JDK 8+. This is a prerequisite since it…