Required Java version is changing to 8

[lbalmaceda]

Description

Java 7 (2011) stopped receiving public updates on 2015, only Oracle extends its support nowadays. Due to most libraries moving to and requiring Java 8 during the past years (see references), we are now making the decision of updating this SDK’s minimum required Java to the version 8 in a minor package release.

This will enable us to pull the changes for the next planned major version sooner into the current branch and without introducing additional breaking changes.

A new minor version will soon be published that will target Java 8. At that time, Java 7 will no longer be supported.

We plan to make this release no sooner than 30 days from this posting. If our timeline needs to be adjusted for any reason, we will follow-up here.

Resources

• https://www.oracle.com/java/technologies/java-se-support-roadmap.html
• https://developer.squareup.com/blog/okhttp-3-13-requires-android-5/
• https://commons.apache.org/proper/commons-lang/release-notes/RELEASE-NOTES-3.9.txt

[downdrown]

Will you update the implementation to use java.time.* classes instead of java.util.Date too?

[jimmyjames]

@downdrown we will be able to do that, though not directly as part of this issue. We should be able to pull #403 and #392 forward to master now. It's not something I'll have bandwidth for before the end of the year, but if anyone's interested and would like to make a PR, would be happy to take a look after the holidays (please create an issue first if you don't mind).

[jimmyjames]

Issue fixed with #455, released in version 3.12.0.