[VOTE] 4.0.2 RC3

Hello Kafka users, developers and client-developers,

This is the third candidate for release of Apache Kafka 4.0.2.

This is a patch release and therefore it contains important bug fixes.

Release notes for the 4.0.2 release:
https://dist.apache.org/repos/dist/dev/kafka/4.0.2-rc3/RELEASE_NOTES.html

*** Please download, test and vote by Wednesday, March 11.

Kafka's KEYS file containing PGP keys we use to sign the release:
https://kafka.apache.org/KEYS

* Release artifacts to be voted upon (source and binary):
https://dist.apache.org/repos/dist/dev/kafka/4.0.2-rc3/

* Docker release artifacts to be voted upon:
apache/kafka:4.0.2-rc3
apache/kafka-native:4.0.2-rc3
https://dist.apache.org/repos/dist/dev/kafka/4.0.2-rc3/kafka_2.13-4.0.2.tgz

* Maven artifacts to be voted upon:
https://repository.apache.org/content/groups/staging/org/apache/kafka/

* Javadoc:
https://dist.apache.org/repos/dist/dev/kafka/4.0.2-rc3/javadoc/

* Tag to be voted upon (off 4.0 branch) is the 4.0.2 tag:
https://github.com/apache/kafka/releases/tag/4.0.2-rc3

* Documentation: https://github.com/apache/kafka-site/pull/807

* Successful CI builds for the 4.0 branch:
Unit/integration tests:
https://github.com/apache/kafka/actions/runs/22615674106
System tests: test runs are available at
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1K8nfXNgnSOwc61JhRQylICFivn7ZSMKq?usp=sharing
There were some failures of which all but one are flaky (successful on
rerun) and one is a known test issue:
tests/kafkatest/tests/core/network_degrade_test.py::NetworkDegradeTest.test_rate@
{"task_name":"rate-1000-latency-50","device_name":"eth0","latency_ms":50,"rate_limit_kbit":1000000,"metadata_quorum":"COMBINED_KRAFT"}

* Successful Docker Image Github Actions Pipeline for 4.0 branch:
Docker Build Test Pipeline (JVM):
https://github.com/apache/kafka/actions/runs/22615750194
Docker Build Test Pipeline (Native):
https://github.com/apache/kafka/actions/runs/22615760392

I will shortly write a blog post too.

Best,
Viktor