We made a decision given the time available to us to approach the v1beta1 CRD deprecation with a solution that had some compromises that gave us the best chance at getting a minimal product out and available. Given unlimited time, we might have made some different decisions.

Additionally, we know that we considered, and do NOT want to support two separate streams of MTC, or an LTS version. That means we must be able to deprecate 1.5.z with the release of 1.7, as per our normal policy. There is a handful of work blocking that, namely, we need a solution for users that have 3.x (or v1beta1 clusters like early 4.x) on-premesis that a 4.x cloud based cluster cannot see. Today, our recommended solution is for the user to run their controller on the 3.x side. We need to drop support for 3.x and v1beta1 CRD control clusters to allow us to progress with deprecating 1.5 as of the 1.7 release. Therefore, we need a solution for these types of users.

Separately, we'll need to ensure the rest of our supported permutations of OCP versions are still covered with 1.6 and 1.7.