[ANN] Apache Struts 1.x End-Of-Life (EOL) Announcement

[Rene Gielen <rg...@apache.org>]

The Apache Struts Project Team would like to inform you that the Struts
1.x web framework has reached its end of life and is no longer
officially supported.

Started in 2000, Struts 1 had its last release - version 1.3.10 - in
December 2008. In the meantime the Struts community has focused on
pushing the Struts 2 framework forward, with as many as 23 releases as
of this writing. Taking this into account, announcing Struts 1 EOL is
just the official statement that we have been lacking volunteer support
for some time now and that users should not rely on a properly
maintained framework state when utilizing Struts 1 in projects. See the
following Q/A section for more details.

Q: With the announcement of Struts 1 EOL, what happens to Struts 1
resources?
A: All resources will stay where they are. The documentation will still
be accessible from the Apache Struts homepage, as well as the downloads
for all released Struts 1.x versions. All of the Struts 1 source code
can be found in the Apache Struts subversion repository, now and in
future. All released Maven artifacts will still be accessible in Maven
Central.

Q: Given a major security problem or a serious bug is reported for
Struts 1 in near future, can we expect a new release with fixes?
A: As of now, actually no - that is what the EOL announcement
essentially is about. Since the end of support is reached, you will
either need to find mitigations, patch the existing Struts 1 source code
yourself or migrate your project to another web framework.

Q: Is there an immediate need to eliminate Struts 1 from my projects?
A: As far as the Struts team is currently aware of, there is no urgent
issue posing the immediate need to eliminate Struts 1 usage from your
projects. However, you should be aware that security and bug fixes will
no longer be provided. If in future such flaws are found you will need
to take action as described in the preceding answer.

Q: We plan to start a new project based on Struts 1. Can we still do so?
A: Basically yes, but we would not recommend doing so. As long as no
code line is written it is very easy to conceptually select an
alternative web framework such as Struts 2.

Q: We want to migrate our project from Struts 1 to another web
framework. What would you recommend?
A: You should be aware that there is currently no "drop-in" replacement
for Struts 1. You will need to adapt your existing code to the framework
of choice. Basically every action based Java web framework is a possible
candidate. We as the Apache Struts Team can highly recommend
investigating Struts 2 as a successor framework - it is modern, highly
decoupled, feature rich, well maintained and successfully running in
many mission critical projects in the wild. It shares the same basic
principles with Struts 1, but offers a highly improved architecture and
API. Other alternatives are e.g. Spring Web MVC, Grails or Stripes.

Q: My friends / colleagues and I would like to see Struts 1 being
maintained again. What can we do?
A: You are free to put effort in Struts 1. There are basically two
possible ways to do so: either fork the existing source, or engage in
community building within the Apache Struts Project. If there are enough
people demonstrating their will and ability to provide patches,
maintenance and oversight in the long run, there is nothing holding us
back from putting Struts 1 back into maintenance with the help of these
volunteers.

Online Resources:
http://struts.apache.org/struts1eol-announcement.html
http://struts.apache.org/struts1eol-press.html

René Gielen
- Apache Struts PMC Chair -

-- 
http://twitter.com/rgielen

---------------------------------------------------------------------
To unsubscribe, e-mail: dev-unsubscribe@struts.apache.org
For additional commands, e-mail: dev-help@struts.apache.org