Rod Johnson created the Spring framework, which was first distributed under the Apache 2.0 license in June 2003.
In March 2004, the first production of Spring was released, which was version 1.0. In 2006, the Spring 1.2.6 framework acquired the Jolt productivity award and a JAX Innovation Award. Further, Spring 2.0 launched in October 2006, Spring 2.5 was globally released in November 2007, then Spring 3.0 in December 2009, Spring 3.1 in December 2011, and Spring 3.2.5 in November 2013. In December 2013, then came the Spring Framework 4.0.
Support for Groovy 2, Java SE (Standard Edition) 8, several Java EE 7, and WebSocket were among the most vital additions in Spring 4.0.
In April 2014, Spring Boot 1.0 was released.
Spring Framework 4.2.0 was launched on July 31, 2015, and was immediately followed by Spring Framework 4.2.1, released on September 1, 2015. It is also compatible with Java 6, 7, and 8 and focuses on core enhancements and ongoing web features.
On June 10, 2016, Spring Framework 4.3 was launched, and it will be supported until 2020. "Within the overall Spring 4 system requirements (Java 6+, Servlet 2.5+), [...]," it "will be the ultimate generation."
Spring 5 will be built on Reactor Core, compatible with Reactive Streams.
Spring Framework 5.0 requires a minimum of Java EE 7 (e.g., Servlet 3.1+, JPA 2.1+) while also allowing out-of-the-box interaction with newer APIs at the Java EE 8 level (e.g., Servlet 4.0, JSON Binding API) when met at runtime. This ensures that Spring is fully compatible with, for example, WebSphere 9, Tomcat 8, and JBoss EAP 7.
