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Document support policy for OpenTelemetry NuGet packages #7294

@martincostello

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@martincostello

Since we published the patches for the recently disclosed CVEs, we have had feedback from users on .NET Framework that they are using non-latest versions of the SDK because they find the dependency versions for net462 and netstandard2.0 being 10.0.x problematic, so they have avoided upgrading and thus have a desire for patches of old versions of the SDK so they can stay on old versions: #6975.

Before seriously entertaining the idea of providing backports for security fixes, we should determine exactly what our support policy is because it has impact on bandwidth/supportability/CI etc.

In some cases, e.g. GHSA-g94r-2vxg-569j, the vulnerability has always existed, so backporting for one old patch version creates a potentially slippery slope that could result in the worst case of 14 (1.0.x-1.14.x) backports needed to be published. This is clearly not a sustainable proposition.

Possible (not necessarily suggested/recommended) answers to this question for discussion could be:

  • Latest only (e.g. 1.15.x)
  • Latest-1 (e.g. 1.14.x and 1.15.x)
  • Latest-2 (e.g. 1.13.x-1.15.x)
  • Any major/minor version published in the last 6 months (e.g. 1.13.x-1.15.x)
  • Any major/minor version published in the last 2 years (e.g. 1.8.x-1.15.x)
  • Any major/minor version published that supports an in-support version of .NET (e.g. 1.7.x-1.15.x)

Once we come to a decision, we should:

  • Document it
  • Mark any NuGet package versions that fall outside the agreed window as deprecated
  • Consider some automation to automatically flag packages with an issue as and when they reach the threshold so we can manually mark them as such

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