We all knew it had to happen at some point. As of right now, TAB has 40 Bukkit modules for different MC versions, lots of which are not being used by anyone anymore. Starting with 1.20.5, paper decided to make a harder fork from spigot, removing CraftBukkit relocation, requiring 2 implementations for each version - 1 for Spigot and 1 for Paper. All of this causes the plugin to take forever to compile and officially supporting versions that weren't tested for years isn't ideal either.
Eventually, I have decided to start dropping support for older MC versions on Bukkit. When and which versions is still not fully planned, but you can check the estimations below.
Players with unsupported MC versions will remain supported (either on a proxy or through ViaVersion), but plugin will no longer start on those Bukkit versions.
When MC version 26.1 comes out, TAB 6.0.0 will be released, dropping support for non-latest minor versions of each major version below 1.19. This means the following versions will no longer be supported:
- 1.7.2 - 1.7.9
- 1.8 - 1.8.4
- 1.9 - 1.9.2
- 1.13
- 1.16 - 1.16.3
- 1.18
When MC 26.2 comes out (unless it comes out right after 26.1 as a hotfix or something), another set of versions will be removed. This time, it will be all major versions which are no longer being used by anyone:
- 1.9.x
- 1.10.x
- 1.11.x
- 1.13.1
- 1.14.x
- 1.15.x
- 1.17.x
At this point, the supported versions will be 1.7.10, 1.8.8,, 1.12.2, 1.16.5 and 1.18.2+.
At this point I will take a deeper look at which versions people are using. Since 1.19.3, Mojang has decided to make major breaking changes in minor versions, which is why you can see lots of servers, especially modded, using non-latest minor release of each major release on 1.19+ (such as 1.19.2, 1.20.1, 1.20.4, 1.21.1), unlike on older MC versions (1.7.10, 1.12.2, 1.16.5, 1.18.2).
For this, I have added a bStats chart into 5.5.0 release, with every new TAB version receiving a new one. The existing bStats chart for MC versions is global for all plugin versions. There are servers using TAB 2.x versions, which are unlikely to ever update, so supporting random versions for those who will never update neither their server nor TAB wouldn't make sense. Take this as a form of "voting" for supported versions. So go to your bStats folder and enable it back (I know you disabled it).
As previously said, I now have to have 2 modules for each MC version since 1.20.5+ due to no CraftBukkit relocation on paper. According to this trustworthy data source, Paper has a 117.25% market share on modern versions, meaning supporting Spigot would be pointless. Also spigot users are a special breed. Just look at the reviews they are leaving on plugins. Let's leave them alone and not associate with them.
As such, at some point I will completely drop Spigot for 1.20.5+, where paper is different now and only support that.
With the rise of Modrinth and downfall of spigot, most people use a version download filter to find the latest jar for their server version. This has been the case with modded platforms since forever through CurseForge, now with Modrinth this is the case for plugins too. There is no need to make it easier for people to find plugin version for their server version by supporting all MC versions.
As such, at some point in the future, TAB might only support the latest MC version(s), similar to modded platforms, or multiple latest versions (for example 26.x, 27.x, ...). This is still far in the future and very uncertain.