One other thought, if there are non-ORM callers into AnnotationFactory.create(AnnotationDescriptor descriptor), when they sync up with the new HCANN version that contains the https://gist.github.com/sebersole/64be856cfddd54c4eb76 change, they could be surprised by the change. It is probably a good change, just one that should be communicated on hibernate-dev ml, so others know to expect it. IMO