Define future of the WireMock 2.x baseline

[oleg-nenashev]

WireMock 3.x is going to drop Java 1.8 support, and hence there will be some impact on users who stay on old (and EoLed by Oracle) version. Atthe same time, WireMock 3.x baseline already includes a lot of patches that are not strictly related to the scope of the 3.0 release in #2133. These are business-as-usual merges which have not seen the light in production yet. On a few occasions, users also asked for the release in 2.x too.

It would be nice to have a clear plan on the 2.x baseline in the documentation:

• Is WireMock 2.x de-facto deprecated at the moment, and no releases are planned?
• Would we consider releasing 2.x with some bugfix backports and enhancements while 3.x is in progress?
• If so, what is the EoL date for WireMock 2.x?

[oleg-nenashev]

To summarize the discussion we had with @tomakehurst a while ago, the conclusions are the following:

• The priority is releasing WireMock 3 to users as soon as all planned breaking changes are introduced. We do not plan major breaking changes between 3.x and 2.x on the code and functionality level
• We do not plan to release new versions of WireMock 2.x stable, unless there is a mission critical defect or a security issue that need addressing.
• In any case, there would be no new features introduced in WireMock 2.x
• All users are invited to start using WireMock 3.x Beta releases. They are considered stable enough to start adoption and feedback
• WireMock 2.0 will be put to end-of-life immediately after the WireMock 3.0.0 release
• This is not a general policy for any major release. After WireMock 3 is out, we will start planning the release of WireMock 4 and a support policy for it.