[release-24.0] Release of v24.0.0-RC1

[mattlord]

Includes the release notes and release commit for the v24.0.0-RC1 release. Once this PR is merged, we will be able to tag v24.0.0-RC1 on the merge commit.

This Pull Request is part of #19796

[vitess-bot]

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[Copilot]

Pull request overview

Prepares the release-24.0 branch for the v24.0.0-RC1 release by updating version strings across Go/Java artifacts, pinning example manifests to release image tags, and adding the v24.0.0 changelog + release notes content.

Changes:

• Bump Java module POM versions from 24.0.0-SNAPSHOT to 24.0.0-rc1.
• Update Vitess version constant to 24.0.0-rc1 and refresh example operator manifests to use v24.0.0-rc1 images.
• Add changelog/24.0/24.0.0/{changelog.md,release_notes.md} and link them from changelog/24.0/README.md.

Reviewed changes

Copilot reviewed 15 out of 15 changed files in this pull request and generated 2 comments.

Show a summary per file

File	Description
java/pom.xml	Sets parent Maven version to 24.0.0-rc1.
java/jdbc/pom.xml	Aligns JDBC module parent version to 24.0.0-rc1.
java/grpc-client/pom.xml	Aligns gRPC client module parent version to 24.0.0-rc1.
java/example/pom.xml	Aligns example module parent version to 24.0.0-rc1.
java/client/pom.xml	Aligns client module parent version to 24.0.0-rc1.
go/vt/servenv/version.go	Updates Vitess runtime version constant to 24.0.0-rc1 (auto-generated).
examples/operator/operator.yaml	Updates operator image reference (needs verification of tag correctness).
examples/operator/401_scheduled_backups.yaml	Pins example images to v24.0.0-rc1 tags.
examples/operator/306_down_shard_0.yaml	Pins example images to v24.0.0-rc1 tags.
examples/operator/302_new_shards.yaml	Pins example images to v24.0.0-rc1 tags.
examples/operator/201_customer_tablets.yaml	Pins example images to v24.0.0-rc1 tags.
examples/operator/101_initial_cluster.yaml	Pins example images to v24.0.0-rc1 tags.
changelog/24.0/README.md	Adds links to the new v24.0.0 changelog + release notes documents.
changelog/24.0/24.0.0/release_notes.md	Adds v24.0.0 release notes (currently contains a duplicated title line).
changelog/24.0/24.0.0/changelog.md	Adds the aggregated v24.0.0 changelog content.

[codecov]

Codecov Report

✅ All modified and coverable lines are covered by tests.
⚠️ Please upload report for BASE (release-24.0@d2273cc). Learn more about missing BASE report.

Additional details and impacted files

@@               Coverage Diff               @@
##             release-24.0   #19852   +/-   ##
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  Coverage                ?   55.16%           
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  Files                   ?       29           
  Lines                   ?     1577           
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  Hits                    ?      870           
  Misses                  ?      707           
  Partials                ?        0           

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