Zipkin 3.0 updates to Spring Boot 3 and floor JRE 17. The core library io.zipkin.zipkin2:zipkin now targets Java 8. This is a major version change for these reasons.
Apart from raising the server's Java target to 17, actual changes for Spring Boot 3 were a breeze. Upgrade breeze is not by accident, rather thanks to conscious thinking by the Spring Boot team. Please thank them for the good work!
On Java version changes
Recent releases of Zipkin use JRE 21 in docker images, as that's the latest LTS. The server now requires JRE 17 because that's the minimal Java target allowed by Spring Boot 3. JDK 17 no longer supports compilation below Java 8, which impacted our version range. The next notes cover impacts on the core library.
io.zipkin.zipkin2:zipkin now targets Java 8, formerly Java 6. Libraries who need to retain Java 6 or old Android versions should stay on 2.x or move to latest zipkin-reporter-brave which still supports Java 6. This should not impact many because known libraries that depend on zipkin require Java 8 or later.
Again, Zipkin Reporter 3 and Brave 6 no longer have a strict dependency on io.zipkin.zipkin2:zipkin so, still support Java 6.
Notable updates
As this is a major version update, we updated all server extensions we maintain, including:
- zipkin-aws (docker openzipkin/zipkin-aws)
- zipkin-gcp (docker openzipkin/zipkin-gcp)
- zipkin-storage-kafka (docker ghcr.io/openzipkin-contrib/zipkin-storage-kafka)
- zipkin-storage-forwarder (docker ghcr.io/openzipkin-contrib/zipkin-storage-forwarder)
We also opened a contrib repository for OpenTelemetry zipkin-otel. It is currently empty because the code changes requested haven't migrated, yet. Please watch this if interested or help make it similar to zipkin-gcp.
Also, based on popular demand, zipkin will be added to homebrew soon. Please track this PR for updates.
Finally, have a look at the community page if you are new to zipkin or want to reach out and let people know what's new. Let's look forward to many more years of stable simple tracing together!