Maven compiler error - invalid flag -- release

I am getting a maven compiler error when compiling with JDK 1.8

Failed to execute goal org.apache.maven.plugins:maven-compiler-plugin:3.8.1:compile (default-compile) on project DUMMY : Fatal error compiling: invalid flag: --release -> [Help 1]

Here is my pom configuration for compiler plugin

            <configuration>
                <source>${maven.compiler.release}</source>
                <target>${maven.compiler.release}</target>
                <release>${maven.compiler.release}</release>
                <jdkToolchain>
                    <version>${maven.compiler.release}</version>
                </jdkToolchain>
                <verbose>false</verbose>
                <useIncrementalCompilation>false</useIncrementalCompilation>
                <executable>${env.JAVA_HOME}/bin/javac</executable>
            </configuration>

Have I configured this incorrectly? Also, this works fine when I have Java 11 for JAVA_HOME, but not with Java 8. Is this expected? Also, from the docs I see that maven.compiler.release is tied with release config anyway. So, does it mean I can ommit the release attribute below and it should be fine?

Solution

As mentioned in documentation this argument supported since Java 9, so either change your JDK version or just remove it.