I understand thatCloudEvents is firmlyrooted on a Java 8 baseline.

It is alsotrue that the entire Spring Boot2.x generation is based onJava 8 (seehere).

CloudEvents'Spring integration significantly lags behind atversion2.4.3, and not even the latest2.4.x release at that (which is2.4.13). Although, it is a moot point given2.4.x as been out of OSS (2021-11-18) and Commercial (2023-02-23)Support for some time now (click "more" to expand the list).

Technically, even Spring Boot2.7.x is out of OSS support, as of 2023-06-30. While Commercial support does not end until 2029-06-30, it does require users/customers to buy a commercial license to contract the Spring team to patch the2.7.x release line. Without commercial support, there will simply be no more patch (maintenance) releases to the2.7.x release line.

It is strongly recommended to upgrade to, or at least provide a version of CloudEvents for, Spring Boot3.x, based on Java 17.

Java 17 is a LTS version, as is Java 21. Java 24 is already available. Spring Boot 4.0 is on the horizon.