Re: [VOTE] 4.4.0 RC1

Hi Omnia, Thanks for the RC. There seems to be the same problems as with the 4.2.2 RC and the staged Maven artifacts seem to be missing in the staging repo. (I wonder if for some reason both RCs were dropped by the Maven repo or if there is some issue with doing two releases in parallel and you are overwriting each other 🤔) Thanks Jakub On Tue, Sep 22, 2026 at 4:10 PM Omnia Ibrahim <o.g.h.ibrahim@gmail.com> wrote: > Hello Kafka users, developers and client-developers, > > This is the 2nd candidate for release of Apache Kafka 4.4.0. > > Apache Kafka 4.4.0 is a minor release that includes 26 KIPs spanning > improvements to all components. > > Release notes for the 4.4.0 release: > https://dist.apache.org/repos/dist/dev/kafka/4.4.0-rc1/RELEASE_NOTES.html > > Please download, test and vote by Friday, September 25, 2026, 12:30pm BST > (4:30am PT) > > Kafka's KEYS file containing PGP keys we use to sign the release: > https://downloads.apache.org/kafka/KEYS > > * Release artifacts to be voted upon (source and binary): > https://dist.apache.org/repos/dist/dev/kafka/4.4.0-rc1/ > > * Docker release artifacts to be voted upon: > apache/kafka:4.4.0-rc1 > apache/kafka-native:4.4.0-rc1 > > * 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/4.4.0-rc1/javadoc/index.html > > * Tag to be voted upon (off 4.4 branch) is the 4.4.0 tag: > https://github.com/apache/kafka/releases/tag/4.4.0-rc1 > > * Documentation: > https://github.com/apache/kafka-site/pull/905 > * Protocol: > https://github.com/apache/kafka-site/pull/905 > > * Successful CI builds for the 4.4 branch: > Unit/integration tests: > https://github.com/apache/kafka/actions/runs/35717651111 > > System tests: [will provide it soon] > * Documentation: > PR: https://github.com/apache/kafka-site/pull/905 > > * Protocol: > PR: https://github.com/apache/kafka-site/pull/905 > > * Successful Docker Image Github Actions Pipeline for 4.4 branch: > Docker Build Test Pipeline (JVM): > https://github.com/apache/kafka/actions/runs/35720261595 > Docker Build Test Pipeline (Native): > https://github.com/apache/kafka/actions/runs/35720261595 > > Thanks, > Omnia