## Spring Framework
The Spring Framework provides a comprehensive programming and configuration
model for modern Java-based enterprise applications - on any kind of deployment
platform. A key element of Spring is infrastructural support at the application
level: Spring focuses on the "plumbing" of enterprise applications so that teams
can focus on application-level business logic, without unnecessary ties to
specific deployment environments.

The framework also serves as the foundation for [Spring Integration][], [Spring
Batch][] and the rest of the Spring [family of projects][]. Browse the
repositories under the [SpringSource organization][] on GitHub for a full list.

## Downloading artifacts
See [downloading Spring artifacts][] for Maven repository information. Unable to
use Maven or other transitive dependency management tools? See [building a
distribution with dependencies][].

## Documentation
See the current [Javadoc][] and [reference docs][].

## Getting support
Check out the [Spring forums][] and the [spring][spring tag] and
[spring-mvc][spring-mvc tag] tags on [Stack Overflow][]. [Commercial support][]
is available too.

## Issue Tracking
Report issues via the [Spring Framework JIRA]. Understand our issue management
process by reading about [the lifecycle of an issue][]. Think you've found a
bug? Please consider submitting a reproduction project via the
[spring-framework-issues][] GitHub repository. The [readme][] there provides
simple step-by-step instructions.

## Building from source
The Spring Framework uses a [Gradle][]-based build system. In the instructions
below, [`./gradlew`][] is invoked from the root of the source tree and serves as
a cross-platform, self-contained bootstrap mechanism for the build.

### prerequisites

[Git][] and [Early Access build of OpenJDK 1.8 build 88][JDK18 build 88]
> **Note:** Do not use the "lambda" edition of JDK b88 when building the
framework, as it still causes some errors. It should be fine, however, to
*run* against various versions of Ope