Drop support for Java 8 about jmx_exporter HOT 8 OPEN

We were generating two artifacts when we supported Java 6 and Java 8 and it was a total mess. I'll have to put some thought into an approach that will work.

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While I agree, that no one should be using Java 8 at this point, there are still users using it and vendors supporting it.

Azul has support for Java 8 until 2030

https://www.azul.com/products/azul-support-roadmap/

AWS has support for Corretto until May 2026

https://aws.amazon.com/about-aws/whats-new/2020/08/amazon-corretto-8-11-support-extended/

Removing support would be problematic for the community.

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@dhoard I had a feeling that would be the response, which is why I raised this as a discussion rather than a PR.

I'm curious, do you have evidence that there are users running JDK 8?

I wonder if it might be possible to produce multiple JARs. One for JDK 8, and one compiled for a newer JDK?

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This type of evidence is hard to prove/disprove.

I can only infer there are Java 8 users, hence possibly Java 8 JMX Exporter users, since multiple companies have paid extended support. (Oracle sells extended support until December 2030.)

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Fair point.

How about we create two Maven profiles, one for targeting JFK 8, and one to target JDK 9, then release multiple artifacts?

Shouldn't be too difficult to sort out, although looking through the CI, I couldn't determine how release artifacts are distributed to GitHub/Maven Central.

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In the meantime, I'll build it myself. This should enable me to quantify any performance improvement.

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