This directory provides a suite of Gradle sub-projects, each of which defines a Java Platform for use in Gradle projects targeting the JVM.
Java Platforms are Gradle's way of dealing with Maven BOMs. BOMs can be imported and are expressed in a build as constraints, which influence the dependency resolution process.
Platforms (or BOMs, or whatever) are just one way to constrain or define versions in Gradle, with the best route being version catalogs for general use. Platforms can still be useful for several reasons, though:
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You can avoid vulnerabilities by constraining your transitive dependency graph to avoid CVEs. The platforms provided here do this out of the box and are upgraded frequently.
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You can avoid duplicate downloads and processing by aligning your dependency graph and eliding JARs and other artifacts which would normally be duplicates of others