[Q&A] fluent-package v5 EOL?

[dsmith4-godaddy]

The just-announced fluentd 1.16.11 (https://www.fluentd.org/blog/fluentd-v1.16.11-has-been-released) says that this fluentd update will be included in an upcoming fluent-package 5.0.9.

But, https://www.fluentd.org/blog/fluent-package-v6-scheduled-lifecycle says that fluent-package v5 will no longer be supported after the end of 2025. (Which is in about two weeks.)

Does this mean that fluent-package 5.0.9 will be released then almost immediately deprecated? Or, is fluent-package v5 getting additional support (i.e. will it now be supported through the first few months of 2026)?

This is a roundabout way of asking "do I need to rush my fluent-package v6 rollout because v5 will be EOL in two weeks, or has v5 gotten a bit of additional life and I can do my v6 rollout early next year".

[Watson1978]

1. Resource Constraints:

   • Unfortunately, due to limited maintainer resources, it is not feasible for us to maintain both v5 and v6 as active LTS versions simultaneously.

2. Ruby Lifecycle:

   • v5 is based on Ruby 3.2. Ruby 3.2 is approaching its End of Life (EoL) soon (https://www.ruby-lang.org/en/downloads/branches/).
   • Keeping v5 active would require supporting an EoL Ruby version, which is a security risk.

3. Bug Fix:

   • If a bug found in Fluentd 1.16 (bundled in v5) can be reproduced in Fluentd 1.19 (bundled in v6), we will fix it in the latest version (v6/1.19).

[kenhys]

Unfortunately, due to limited maintainer resources, it is not feasible for us to maintain both v5 and v6 as active LTS versions simultaneously.

To be precise, we are currently in the process of encouraging migration from v5 LTS to v6 LTS.
v6 was released in the summer, and we have been supporting v5 (v5.0.8 and planned v5.0.9 ) as a grace period for those who cannot migrate immediately to v6.
That will end in Dec 2025.

[Watson1978]

Thanks