We’re excited to share our plans for the upcoming Crowd 7.0 Data Center release. Being a major version, this release might include multiple breaking changes that establish the foundation for continued improvement in future 7.x feature releases.
Crowd 7.0 will primarily focus on addressing security vulnerabilities associated with server-side dynamic content rendering technologies, such as Apache Struts and Apache Freemarker.
As the development of the release is underway, the specifics of breaking changes will evolve.
Predicted scope of breaking changes
This is our best estimate of areas with breaking changes at this point. Our Early Access Program releases (EAP) will contain the scope of breaking changes in Crowd 7.0 along with supporting documentation with more details and specifics. Several platform and security upgrades are planned for Crowd 7.0:
- Upgrade to Struts 6.6
- Removal of Apache Freemarker templates
- Removal of the xwork plugin module
- Added support for Apache Velocity and Soy templates - Crowd 7.0 will introduce a new plugin module, Struts, which will support two template engines: Apache Velocity and Soy. See Struts Module for technical details.
Test with EAP releases
Early Access Program (EAP) releases are designed to provide visibility and an opportunity to develop against the changes of the upcoming platform release.
We’ll communicate ahead of the following EAP releases and do our best to include most of the planned breaking changes as early as possible to give you enough time to schedule changes to your app before the official Crowd 7.0 release.
When will Crowd 7.0 arrive?
We can’t provide an exact date yet but our current target to release Crowd 7.0 is Q1, 2025.
Will there be additional resources to help us prepare?
Yes! In coordination with the EAP programs, we’ll provide more detail about breaking changes and the technical scope of Crowd 7.0. We’ll also have technical documentation detailing how to adopt the changes to Crowd. We’ll be publishing all the documentation on the Preparing for Crowd 7.0.0 page.
Will there be breaking changes to Crowd’s APIs?
No, there will be no breaking changes to the REST API and the Java API.
Are there any restrictions on who has access to the EAP builds of Crowd 7.0?
No, there aren’t any restrictions. The EAP is open to everyone.
We’re looking forward to hearing your feedback.
Best,
the Crowd team