On 2026-01-08, almost two months ago, a Log4j Kotlin API user filed a bug
report <https://github.com/apache/logging-log4j-kotlin/issues/144> claiming
that `log4j-api-kotlin` versions `>=1.5.0` (released on 2024-08-03) does
not work with `log4j-core` version `>=2.24.0` (released on 2024-09-03).
This suggests the following possibilities:
1. The claim is bogus, but no maintainer has time to disprove it.
2. The claim is right, but
- No tests are in place to catch this.
- No Log4j Kotlin API users have upgraded their Log4j Core in the
last 2 years!?
- There are not really many Log4j Kotlin API users.
- The user happens to be the only one determined enough to report this
issue.
To address point #1, we added Raman Gupta to the PMC on 2025-11-21. But we
still could not produce enough development power to triage Kotlin-related
issues in time. (I'm not pointing any fingers here. Like every other PMC
member, I could have also done a better job on Kotlin-specific tasks.)
All in all, I find this picture concerning. Instead of stating on the
website, *"Log4j Kotlin API version X does/doesn't work with Log4j Core
version Y"*, which is the suggested resolution in the ticket
<https://github.com/apache/logging-log4j-kotlin/issues/144#issuecomment-4042421279>,
*maybe we should just retire the project. Thoughts?*
Recall that retiring the Log4j Scala API brought no user complaints,
approved by the Scala community, and resulted in less noise for [active]
PMC members.
FWIW, the reporter is fine with retiring the project
<https://github.com/apache/logging-log4j-kotlin/issues/144#issuecomment-4068906321>
.
