[jakarta.ee-spec.committee] Changing specs from Mandatory to Optional

[Abraham Marin-Perez <abraham.marin.perez@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi team,

Following up from the conversation during today’s Spec Committee call, I'd like to propose that we specify a process for changing specs from Mandatory to Optional that is analogous to the deprecation process. The rationale for this is that, when changing specs from Mandatory to Optional, users need to change their expectations and prepare for the fact that a spec that was guaranteed to be there may not be there in the future; in essence, this is similar to setting expectations for features/specs/components that are marked for deprecation and removed.

I propose a similar process: a spec that is going from Mandatory to Optional must first be marked as “candidate for optional”, and can then be made Optional not sooner than one major version later.

Thoughts?

Abraham

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Abraham Marin-Perez

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