[CRD-v1] Should we remove `.status.kafkaMetadataState` in the `Kafka` CR status

[scholzj]

With ZooKeeper gone, the .status.kafkaMetadataState field in the Kafka CR status section seems to have only one purpose left. To protect latest versions of the operator from messing up with some unmigrated clusters in case the upgrade was done by mistake before all Zoo-based clusters were migrated.

Given Strimzi 0.45 happened a long time ago, it seems to be less likely this is still needed (although it still might be of use in some situations when some users are still on ZooKeeper and try to upgrade).

• Do we see / expect any other use for this field?
• If not, how long should we keep this field in use? Should we remove it in the Strimzi v1 CRD API?

[im-konge]

I would say, that in v1 (and then version 1.0.0) we can assume that we will have just KRaft clusters. We can write a warning that in case that users will still stay on ZK and upgrade, it will cause issues with their clusters.
But anyway even now we are saying that in order to upgrade to newer version of Strimzi, they need to upgrade to 0.45 and migrate to KRaft.

So with v1 I would remove the field.

[ppatierno]

I can't see any usage of the kafkaMetadataState field in the future. It was used mostly to distinguish between ZK and KRaft and used for storing migration state. With CRD v1 I would expect all clusters will be KRaft and if not, I would blame users not upgrading yet because it's almost one year of 0.45.0 and it won't be supported anymore soon.
I am for removing the field.

[katheris]

I'm also happy with us removing the field in v1

[scholzj]

Included in the general v1 proposal: strimzi/proposals#174