5.3.0-M1-release-notes (#5633)

Author: hmottestad

site/content/news/rdf4j-530-M1.md

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+---
+title: "RDF4J 5.3.0 Milestone 1"
+date: 2025-12-21T23:16:10+0100
+layout: "single"
+categories: ["news"]
+---
+Milestone number 1 of the upcoming 5.3.0 release of RDF4J is now available for download.
+
+RDF4J 5.3.0 is a minor release focusing on stability and getting the code ready for the next major release. 
+
+### Notable changes in 5.3.0 M1
+
+ - The Var implementation used in the query engine now supports custom implementations through the Java Service Provider Interface (SPI). See: [Var.java](https://github.com/eclipse-rdf4j/rdf4j/blob/1fd83f729d0c1a23d66cda2eeea5b77994d1b586/core/queryalgebra/model/src/main/java/org/eclipse/rdf4j/query/algebra/Var.java#L320)
+ - The Solr Sail has been deprecated and will be removed in the next major release.
+
+This milestone build is not yet feature-complete, but we are putting it out to receive early feedback on the deprecation.
+
+<!--more-->
+
+ - [issues fixed in 5.3.0 Milestone 1](https://github.com/eclipse/rdf4j/issues?q=is%3Aissue+label%3AM1+is%3Aclosed+milestone%3A5.3.0)
+ - [issues planned for 5.3.0](https://github.com/eclipse/rdf4j/milestone/124)
+
+### Links
+
+- [Download RDF4J](/download/)