It’s just me, Pieter, and Timon. With the idea of working towards a reproducible Apache NetBeans approved process for generating installers and gathering funds and potentially enabling the providing of support. But all things take time.
Gj On Sun, 7 Jun 2026 at 19:21, Matthias Bläsing <[email protected]> wrote: > Hi, > > I think the best option would be to have the installers inside the > project, but that might be only a long term goal and needs someone, > that really wants that. > > Having an organisation that provides installer for NetBeans and is > associated with the projects is IMHO the second best. If really only > timing was the problem last time, I think that can indeed be improved. > > What I see as an issue is, that "Friends of NetBeans" is opaque. I > found a handful of messages here (I did not check whether these were on > private@ or dev@) about "them". I'm aware that most (all?) release > communication, apart from the announcements, happens on the slack > channel, so are the people doing the "Friends of NetBeans" releasers > aware of that and integrated? Would it be a good idea to have them > there? > > Greetings > > Matthias > > Am Donnerstag, dem 04.06.2026 um 14:25 +0100 schrieb Neil C Smith: > > I want to have a frank discussion about installers, and what our plan > > should be for NetBeans 31 and beyond. This follows up on some > > conversation already elsewhere, such as Slack. I originally talked > > about providing community installers for a further year while things > > got resolved. That would make NetBeans 31 the last. Resolution does > > not seem to be getting any nearer right now. We need to work out a > > plan here, and we probably have 3 options - > > > > - Drop all installers / leave to independent packagers. May not be > > ideal, around ~60% of our user base use installers. Third-parties > > with no connection here remove oversight - unsupported configs, more > > bug reports for us! And some, like winget, just link to other > > providers anyway. > > > > - Bring back into ASF. This would remove the bundled JDK option, and > > issues around code signing to resolve from the thread I started on the > > security-discuss list [1]. No JDK is at least a possible option on > > Windows now with changes elsewhere since we dropped the legacy NBI > > installers, but there are some edge cases to resolve. The amount of > > work may be a potential problem. I can donate my workflow here if > > useful, but there is work to do to adapt to ASF's signing requirements > > and properly test no-JDK Windows support in NBPackage. > > > > - Bring the Friends of Apache NetBeans installers into line with the > > community installer requirements [2], with possible PMC discussion / > > decision on changing those requirements. The original plan was that > > FoAN hosted shared infrastructure for these that PMC members could > > access. That has still not happened. And whatever happens here, the > > FoAN installers cannot continue being unaligned with the PMC > > requirement - I don't think thousands of Windows users getting a > > pre-released package or a package in an unsupported configuration is > > OK. > > > > Any thoughts? Other options to explore? > > > > If we go with the latter two options, I'll continue to provide > > community installers for NB31 as a backup option. If we go with the > > first option, I'd probably stop after this one. > > > > [1] Thread from March on security-discuss about access to ASF's code > > signing in a GitHub workflow given our lack of reproducible builds - > > https://lists.apache.org/thread/y72098wsxxg6504mll6qkc23sq37lmcp > > > > [2] The community installer definition that has existed since 2022 > > amounts to "NetBeans packages bundled with the latest, recommended > > JDK, built, tested and signed off by a PMC member". It's what we > > agreed to point people to when dropping ASF built installers last > > March. > > > > Thanks and best wishes, > > > > Neil > > > > --------------------------------------------------------------------- > > To unsubscribe, e-mail: [email protected] > > For additional commands, e-mail: [email protected] > > > > For further information about the NetBeans mailing lists, visit: > > https://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/display/NETBEANS/Mailing+lists > > > > > > --------------------------------------------------------------------- > To unsubscribe, e-mail: [email protected] > For additional commands, e-mail: [email protected] > > For further information about the NetBeans mailing lists, visit: > https://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/display/NETBEANS/Mailing+lists > > > >
