Minim golang 1.18 and drop vendor folder

[6543]

• get access to generics
• drop vendor
• release tarball with vendor-ed files

close #786

[codecov-commenter]

Codecov Report

Merging #979 (7d69b32) into master (904f9bb) will not change coverage.
The diff coverage is n/a.

❗ Current head 7d69b32 differs from pull request most recent head 449a88d. Consider uploading reports for the commit 449a88d to get more accurate results

@@           Coverage Diff           @@
##           master     #979   +/-   ##
=======================================
  Coverage   51.31%   51.31%           
=======================================
  Files          81       81           
  Lines        6143     6143           
=======================================
  Hits         3152     3152           
  Misses       2808     2808           
  Partials      183      183           

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