KIP-1124 — Providing a clear Kafka Client upgrade path for 4.x

Accepted Kafka 4.0 ClientAdmin

Defines official Kafka client cut-off versions below which direct upgrades to 4.x are not supported, and identifies bridge release versions that provide a stepping-stone upgrade path for very old clients (pre-2.x) to 4.x. Without a documented upgrade path, users running old client versions have no guidance on which intermediate Kafka version to upgrade through first, increasing the risk of subtle compatibility failures.

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