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Balancing the various aspects, we propose only deprecating Java 11 support for the kafka broker, its dependent modules and the tools module in Apache Kafka 3.7 with support being dropped in Apache Kafka 4.0. The remaining modules (clients, streams, connect, tools, etc.) will continue to support Java 11. This approach is similar to the one introduced by Elasticsearch 8.0 where the server requires Java 17, but the client requires an older Java version.

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• Deprecate Java 11 build for the kafka broker and its dependent modules in Kafka 3.7: update documentation including the downloads page.
• In Kafka 4.0:

  • Set sourceCompatibility/targetCompatibility/release to 17 for the relevant modules in build.gradle.

  • Remove all Java 11 specific code from the relevant modules.
  • Update Readme and documentation (including the downloads page) to specify Java 17 as a requirement for the kafka broker and relevant modules. All other modules (including clients, streams , and connect and tools) would continue to require Java 11 (as specified by KIP-750).
• The affected modules are: kafka-server-common, kafka-server, kafka_2.13, kafka-storage, kafka-metadata, kafka-group-coordinator, kafka-raft, kafka-shell, kafka-tools.

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