Idea:

Sun Java 1.5 has:

• end of public updates - Oct 2009
• end of Premier Support - May 2011
• end of Extended Support - May 2015
• see http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/eol-135779.html

IBM Java 1.5:

• its End Of Servcie (EOS) will expire on September 2015
• see https://www.ibm.com/developerworks/java/jdk/lifecycle/

According to various sources, most popular are Java6 and Java7 with Java8 growing up; Java1.5 has a fraction of market right now:

• http://www.statowl.com/java.php
  although the report above shows Java version in web browser. Production environment may be different (especially regarding IBM Java).

Benefits:

Dropping support for Java 1.5 would improve Clover development, as we could:

• use @Override for interfaces
• use newer version of Guava (we're on Guava 9 due to required JDK1.5 binary compatibility)
• have all Clover modules and plugins on the same JDK level
  • Groovy/Grails require JDK6+ to compile and execute
  • Clover-for-IDEA (IDEA12 JPS) requires JDK6+ to compile and execute
  • rest is on JDK5

Tasks:

• update Supported-Platforms page
• update guava library (and all others which are compiled against jdk6)
• update build scripts
• affects Clover Core, Clover-for-Ant, Clover-for-Maven2&3, Clover-for-Eclipse, Clover-for-IDEA, Clover-for-Grails

Out of scope:

• adding Override annotations - this will be done gradually during daily development