I'm sorry to sound harsh, but I really fail to parse the "motivations to be more open are non existent" part.
We complained about the slow adoption of open rules, like discussion on public mailing lists, when former Sun engineers were pulling back in form of private replies all and every public conversation, and we did in a strong and clear way right at the beginning, I remember at the first Fosdem right after openjdk was released; and I was there, I remember Andrew, the Red Hat people, as well as many other hacker that contribute real code during the years. I hardly remember having seen you around, though. Sorry, but you are telling me that in order to have a more open project we do need to start with a closed one? Again? You must be kidding us so. I thought we moved on to another phase, instead is like starting it all over again. Honestly, is quite hard to agree. I really want to be nice, so I'm not going to say that self appointed judges are trying to sell us fried air, but I'm really thinking so... Mario -- Sent from HTC Desire... pgp key: http://subkeys.pgp.net/ PGP Key ID: 80F240CF Fingerprint: BA39 9666 94EC 8B73 27FA FC7C 4086 63E3 80F2 40CF http://www.icedrobot.org Proud GNU Classpath developer: http://www.classpath.org/ Read About us at: http://planet.classpath.org OpenJDK: http://openjdk.java.net/projects/caciocavallo/ Please, support open standards: http://endsoftpatents.org/ ----- Reply message ----- Da: "Jason Gartner" <jgart...@ca.ibm.com> Data: mar, mag 3, 2011 15:36 Oggetto: OpenJDK Governing Board Minutes: 20011/4/21 A: <gb-discuss@openjdk.java.net> The new Governing Board is taking longer than expected to establish, and while progress on the bylaws is slower than expected, it seems prudent to get the bylaws accepted and in place ahead of asking for the new Board's approval to establish the OpenJDK8 project. The OpenJDK project has been operating essentially without any rules and the motivation for individuals within the project to behave in a more open way has been non-existent. Open behavior should be awarded and closed behavior should be exposed. Without a set of bylaws, acting upon these simple rules is very difficult. I agree it may seem counter-intuitive, but at the moment, we discussed it and felt that getting a set of bylaws approved is a priority to begin changing this inherent culture within that will take much more time than simply opening a project. Open development, as you noted yourself, is much more than hacking code. Bugs, testcases, build, infrastructure, etc are all necessary items needed for open development and something that the board is committed to providing. We need to start somewhere and want OpenJDK8 to start under the appropriate governance. Jason 2670 Queensview Gartner Drive Director, Ottawa, ON K2B 8K1 Java Technologies IBM Software Canada Group Phone: +1-613-356-6242 e-mail: jgart...@ca.ibm.com From: Dr Andrew John Hughes <gnu_and...@member.fsf.org> To: Doug Lea <d...@cs.oswego.edu> Cc: gb-discuss@openjdk.java.net Date: 05/03/2011 04:27 AM Subject: Re: OpenJDK Governing Board Minutes: 20011/4/21 Sent by: gb-discuss-boun...@openjdk.java.net On 30 April 2011 11:59, Doug Lea <d...@cs.oswego.edu> wrote: > On 04/28/11 15:06, Ludwig, Mark wrote: >> >> It might help the contributors be more patient if they understood why it >> helps the OpenJDK community to wait for this. Neither the minutes from >> the >> board meeting nor the ensuing discussion in the last twelve hours really >> explain why waiting indefinitely is better than letting OpenJDK 8 get >> started >> now. >> > > The GB cannot make decisions based on the bylaws if we do not have > bylaws. Until then, it appears that the original interim rules > and conventions still apply. This is how some of > the prospective JDK8 projects (like lambda) have already been set up. > Oracle could insist on doing the same for jdk8 itself, despite the GB. > However, if jdk8 escapes the upcoming new bylaws, then primary jdk > development may continue to operate under the old interim conventions > for years. > > -Doug > Can you explain what is wrong with the current conventions? I can think of many things I believe could be improved with the current OpenJDK project, but the conventions for creating new projects doesn't factor high on the list. I'm not saying the current rules are perfect, but they've worked for the last four years and allowed a number of projects to be started by non-Oracle contributors (the porting project, IcedTea, the Mac OS port). I also hardly think you can claim that lambda is a OpenJDK8 project setup under the old guidelines as it was setup as an OpenJDK7 project, and is only now part of OpenJDK8 due to the decision to mo
