OpenJDK bug database: JIRA pilot deployment

[mark.reinhold at oracle.com]

We (i.e., Oracle) have decided to move ahead with a pilot deployment of
JIRA for use by the OpenJDK Community.

In our view JIRA offers several important advantages over the principal
competition, namely Bugzilla [1][2]:

  - Easier customization -- JIRA has a well-documented and supported
    plugin API, whereas extensions to Bugzilla seem (most often) to
    require changes to its core code.

  - Less integration work -- JIRA already integrates well with a review
    system (Crucible) and a code-browsing system (FishEye), as well as
    some related systems, right out of the box.  With Bugzilla we'd have
    to integrate such disparate systems ourselves.

  - Multiple customizable workflows -- We have a clear need to support
    multiple workflows, not just for bugs but also for API change reviews
    (to replace the current internal "CCC" process) and for tracking the
    status of ongoing feature work.  JIRA supports multiple workflows,
    but Bugzilla does not.

It's true that JIRA is not an open-source product, and I understand why
some people are uncomfortable with that.  What's important, however, is
that the data in this JIRA instance will be openly available as required
by the Bylaws [3].

We hope to deploy a JIRA pilot instance in the next few months for use
by non-JDK Projects within OpenJDK.  If that goes well then we'd look
to migrate the current JDK bug corpus from Oracle's legacy internal
system to JIRA by mid-2012.

- Mark


[1] http://mail.openjdk.java.net/pipermail/web-discuss/2011-May/000221.html
[2] http://cr.openjdk.java.net/~mo/openjdk/bugsystem/BugzillaJIRAComparison.pdf
[3] http://openjdk.java.net/bylaws#_A