Hi Gary,

May I offer a different perspective on this.

On Wed, 30 Aug 2023 at 18:56, Gary Gregory <garydgreg...@gmail.com> wrote:
> - I like a mon-repo in general because:
> -- Everything is released together with the same version. There is no
> mystery of what works with what, what we tested with what. See the bugs
> with Maven plugins mysteriously breaking as counter-examples.

While seeing the same version is aesthetically pleasant, we have 4
kinds of users:
 * library developers will never need anything beyond `log4j-api`,
 * JUL users will only need `log4j-to-jul`, which declares its
`log4j-api` requirement,
 * same for Logback users, they'll only need `log4j-to-slf4j`,
 * Log4j Core users **need** to use `log4j-bom` anyway: I have seen
several question from Spring Boot users that add the newest version of
`log4j-core` to their app and end up with an old (incompatible)
version of `log4j-api`, since Spring Boot does version management.

> -- A mono-repo gives me the confidence that everything works *together* 
> because
> it was built and tested *together*.

In a multi-module setup we would still run e.g. `log4j-cassandra`
version 2.20.0 tests against the `log4j-core `2.24.0` snapshot.

> -- I or Dependabot can update one Maven property in in my POM for all of
> Log4j and I'm done.
> -- I *don't *want a Dependabot PR for each Log4j jar because I use
> log4j-api v1, log4j-core v2, log4j-foo v3, log4j-bar v4, log4j-boo v5,
> log4j-arg v6, and so on.

If you stick to `log4j-api`, `log4j-bom`, `log4j-to-slf4j` or
`log4j-to-jul` above, you would also get just one Dependabot PR.
With some improvements to Dependabot, a new release of
`log4j-something` and `log4j-bom` might be ignored by Dependabot if it
detects that you are not using `log4j-something`.

> -- A mono-repo is the lowest barrier to entry for new contributors. Don't
> force me to learn more weird tooling and procedures, Maven and plain git
> are enough magic for anyone.

I agree that finding the right repo in a multi-repo project might be
challenging.
On the other hand from a testing perspective the user does not have to
know why a PR on `log4j-core` starts a test suite in another repo.

> - I would like to see all modules split up such that there are no optional
> dependencies. I want to be able to depend on a log4j-console for simple
> apps and get a minimal install.

I would like that too in 3.x. At my current job the requirement was
"having a logging system that prints to a console or a file", so we
went with JUL. Of course I switched the backend on my dev box to Log4j
Core since debugging using JUL is painful (no proper layout, markers,
etc.).

> - I am horrified to read "Enables module rot". Hiding a module from a user
> and letting it "rot" is terrible: It is not a development process and
> reflects poorly on us IMO. To drop a module, we should: Agree in a poll or
> vote, deprecate it for removal, and then remove it. That's a process. Not
> "Oh, well, it's been rotting on the side over there and it doesn't work
> anymore, oh well! Sorry!"

Let's use the term "to retire a module". These are feature stable that
have a much slower lifecycle than `log4j-core` and a smaller user
base.
I would prefer:
 * to still support these modules,
 * to have a version number that reflects the actual changes to the module,
 * to be able to release them independently if a bug report comes in,
 * to allow people to relieve us from maintaining these modules, if
they work on a day-to-day basis with that technology. E.g. Apache
Cassandra might decide to take over `log4j-cassandra` (fork the repo).

We are not talking about "hiding" them from the user: one of the
projects for next year is to include on our website the generated
documentation of every Log4j component that has an enhanced
`Log4jPlugins` in its JAR (on a opt-in basis).

I have the feeling that we are discussing an X-Y problem: I want to be
able to release components independently, so I don't have to release
`log4j-core` just because SLF4J released version 2.x or I don't have
to delay the release of `log4j-core` because Jackson has a streak of
CVEs. I'd like to split the responsibility of releasing a 10M monthly
downloads product into more digestible bits.

That is why I support multi-repo, because it seems simpler to reach
the goal. From a Public Relations perspective I would only like
`log4j-api` and the three existing implementations to have separate
repos.

Piotr

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