<sod>The first version was written by [[Rod Johnson (programmer)|Rod Johnson]], who released the framework with the publication of his book ''Expert One-on-One J2EE Design and Development'' in October 2002. The framework was first released under the [[Apache License|Apache 2.0 license]] in June 2003. The first milestone release, 1.0, was released in March 2004, with further milestone releases in September 2004 and March 2005. The Spring 1.2.6 framework won a [[Jolt Awards|Jolt productivity award]] and a [[JAX Innovation Award]] in 2006.<ref>[http://www.ddj.com/architect/187900423?pgno=10 Jolt winners 2006]</ref><ref>[http://jax-award.de/jax_award06/gewinner_de.php JAX Innovation Award Gewinner 2006]</ref> Spring 2.0 was released in October 2006, Spring 2.5 in November 2007, Spring 3.0 in December 2009, Spring 3.1 in December 2011, and Spring 3.2.5 in November 2013.<ref>[https://spring.io/blog/2013/11/07/spring-framework-3-2-5-released SpringSource.org]</ref> Spring Framework 4.0 was released in December 2013.<ref>[https://spring.io/blog/2013/12/12/announcing-spring-framework-4-0-ga-release/ SpringSource.org]</ref> Notable improvements in Spring 4.0 included support for Java SE 8, [[Groovy (programming language)|Groovy]] 2, some aspects of Java EE7, and [[WebSocket]].<eod>
<sod>The first version was written by [[Rod Johnson (programmer)|Rod Johnson]], who released the framework with the publication of his book ''Expert One-on-One J2EE Design and Development'' in October 2002. The framework was first released under the [[Apache License|Apache 2.0 license]] in June 2003. The first milestone release, 1.0, was released in March 2004, with further milestone releases in September 2004 and March 2005. The Spring 1.2.6 framework won a [[Jolt Awards|Jolt productivity award]] and a [[JAX Innovation Award]] in 2006.<ref>[http://www.ddj.com/architect/187900423?pgno=10 Jolt winners 2006]</ref><ref>[http://jax-award.de/jax_award06/gewinner_de.php JAX Innovation Award Gewinner 2006]</ref> Spring 2.0 was released in October 2006, Spring 2.5 in November 2007, Spring 3.0 in December 2009, Spring 3.1 in December 2011, and Spring 3.2.5 in November 2013.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://spring.io/blog/2013/11/07/spring-framework-3-2-5-released |title=Spring Framework 3.2.5 Released | website=Official Spring website | access-date=16 October 2016}}</ref> Spring Framework 4.0 was released in December 2013.<ref>[https://spring.io/blog/2013/12/12/announcing-spring-framework-4-0-ga-release/ SpringSource.org]</ref> Notable improvements in Spring 4.0 included support for Java SE 8, [[Groovy (programming language)|Groovy]] 2, some aspects of Java EE7, and [[WebSocket]].<eod>