Originally, Java 7 compatibility was enforced due to Jenkins not supporting Java 8 at the time. This is no longer true. The Dependency-Check Jenkins plugin requires Java 8 now.
I propose to increase the enforcement to Java 8, dropping Java 7 support, and in doing so, upgrade all third-party components that have historically been pinned at older versions supporting Java 7. The most notorious of these is Lucene, which could theoretically be upgraded to the latest 7.5.x release.
To my knowledge, apache commons (something or other - StringUtils I think), cannot be upgraded due to jar-hell with Jenkins. But other than that, we should be able to upgrade most components to those that have been compiled and targeted for Java 8.
Originally, Java 7 compatibility was enforced due to Jenkins not supporting Java 8 at the time. This is no longer true. The Dependency-Check Jenkins plugin requires Java 8 now.
I propose to increase the enforcement to Java 8, dropping Java 7 support, and in doing so, upgrade all third-party components that have historically been pinned at older versions supporting Java 7. The most notorious of these is Lucene, which could theoretically be upgraded to the latest 7.5.x release.
To my knowledge, apache commons (something or other - StringUtils I think), cannot be upgraded due to jar-hell with Jenkins. But other than that, we should be able to upgrade most components to those that have been compiled and targeted for Java 8.