[Announcement] Deprecation Warnings for the Java/Spring Generator

Deprecation Warnings

A HEADS-UP to all users of the spring generator. With the upcoming major release 6.0.0 of the openapi-generator, several features will be removed from the spring generator. Others are marked as deprecated for removal in 7.0.0.

Features to be removed in version 6.0.0

• spring-mvc (Library): The Spring MVC library is deprecated for removal in version 6.0.0 of openapi-generator. Users should upgrade to the Spring Boot based library. Since the library is based on dependencies which are declared EOL (spring-framework 4.x) and we have no plans to move it forward, it has to be removed for security and maintenance reasons.
• Pre java8 support is going to be removed in OpenAPI generator 6.0.0 including threetenbp and other legacy apis.

Features deprecated in 6.0.0

• springfox (documentationProvider): Springfox is deprecated for removal in version 7.0.0 of openapi-generator. The project seems to be no longer maintained (last commit is of Oct 14, 2020). It works with Spring Boot 2.5.x but not with 2.6. Spring Boot 2.5 is supported until 2022-05-19. Users of openapi-generator should migrate to the springdoc documentation provider which is, as an added bonus, OpenAPI v3 compatible.

This issue is an announcement about upcoming removals and deprecations in the Java/Spring generator; it names no files, tests, or entry points. Read the listed spring-mvc, springfox, and legacy Java support details first, but no concrete change or completion condition is specified.