I was talking to Phil about a related point yesterday. One thing we (the JavaFX developers at Oracle) will need to do is to take a more active approach in helping bugs filed at bugs.java.com make their way from the internal "Incidents" project into the JDK project as an active bug. This doesn't address the concerns over not being able to comment on bugs, but will I hope provide a somewhat better path for app developers to file bugs (at least until the bugs.java.com portal is improved).

-- Kevin


Mario Torre wrote:
As a long time OpenJDK contributor I agree the fact of needing to be
an Author to file bug reports is an inconvenience.

This is something that is discussed basically at every public meeting
where the Governing Board is present (particularly at Fosdem,
sometimes at Java One as well).

For OpenJDK Author is somewhat ok, because the upstream JIRA is mainly
used by people directly working on the code, and since less than
Author (including casual users) can usually file the bug to one of the
downstream OpenJDKs bug databases, like Red Hat/Fedora/Debian
bugzilla, or IcedTea bugzilla, etc... People working on those projects
usually carry on the task to file (and often fix themselves) the bug
upstream, so the kind of filtering that is requested usually is
respected, while still have *some* open door for the general
community.

Less than ideal, but it kind of works...

I realise for OpenJFX this would be more problematic, since there's
not yet a wide downstream community, so the (perhaps limited) benefit
of those external repositories is completely missing in this case.

On the other end, the rules for Author are clear, you need to sign the
OCA (this is the main pain point, but I believe most of the
contributors to OpenJFX already have this done anyway, isn't that a
requirement to use the current JIRA as well?).

Once you're done so, it's up to the projects to decide if a
Contributor can become an Author or not, people that usually
contribute code already (even if they can't push directly) will likely
automagically have the same powers as before.

Right now, to even see an OpenJFX bug I need to log in, so I need an
account. WIth OpenJDK the bugs are accessible so you don't even need
an account to track an issue, here's an example, where I just picked
the first random bug I've seen:

https://bugs.openjdk.java.net/browse/JDK-8075204

I can see that without logging in, something I can't do with the
current bug database, so I don't think the situation is worse really,
it gives more visibility.

Anyway, I encourage you, if you want a better level of access, to
start working with us to find a solution, the right forums is the
"discuss" alias that Dalibor mentioned for a start, and definitely the
Adoption Group can help out in smoothing the transition.

Cheers,
Mario


2015-04-16 9:33 GMT+02:00 Robert Krüger <krue...@lesspain.de>:
On Thursday, April 16, 2015, Ryan Jaeb <r...@jaeb.ca> wrote:

My frustration isn't aimed at anyone on the list, so I hope it didn't seem
like that.

I don't usually post to the list, but I follow it enough to know that, once
we see an announcement like the one Kevin delivered, the decision has been
made and there's no going back.  If I've misinterpreted, I apologize.
Please correct me.

The thing that's particularly frustrating with this incident is that it's
going to have a predictable, negative impact on people like me who feel
like submitting bug reports is the most effect contribution we can make to
the JavaFX community.  Being told that we should engage the JBS folks after
the decision has been made isn't acceptable.  Whoever made the decision to
merge with JBS should already have engaged the JBS folks and advocated for
changes on behalf of the JavaFX community before the decision was
finalized.  The message Kevin delivered should have included the results of
that advocacy.

Regardless, what's done is done.  If we need to have someone engage the JBS
people to ask for policy changes, I think we'd do well to nominate whoever
made the original decision.  If they have enough influence to get a project
merged into the JBS, they're effort will be far more effective than that of
a random person from the community.

We've been told that Oracle wants to see more participation from the JavaFX
community.  This is an excellent opportunity for someone with a decision
making role at Oracle to take action and demonstrate to the community that
they're willing to help facilitate some of that participation.


Amen to every single aspect you touch. I believe that summarizes pretty
well how many of us die-hard java desktop/client-side application/product
developers feel.

@Dalibor: An after-the-fact "Not our responsibility, ask over there" is not
exactly how you get your community to feel involved. But Ryan has also
already covered that very well above.



Reply via email to