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We propose to maintain compatibility across two major version going forward. This assume that there is at least 4 minor version, e.g., 5.0.x to 5.3.x. If there is only 3 minor versions, e.g., the last version is 5.2.x before we go to 6.x, compatibility is guaranteed across three major versions, i.e., between 4.x and 6.x.

Component upgrades:

• Broker and Kafka Connect can be directly upgraded from 4.x to 5.x version. However, there is no guarantee that 3.x brokers / connect workers can be directly upgraded to 5.x.
• Clients (producer/consumers/admin/Kafka Streams) API compatibility:
  • We are allowed break API compatibility with a major release, i.e., 5.x will remove deprecated API
  • We still guarantee a one year API compatibility window, i.e., APIs deprecated in the last three minor versions of 4.x series will not be removed with the 5.0.0 release
  • These last three minor version of 4.x act as bridge release version, and upgrading to any 5.x version is supported
  • Upgrading clients directly from 3.x to 5.x is not supported any longer.

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