Backporting JDK-8210483 to Java 11

[Vitaly Davidovich]

Hey Andrew,

On Wed, Feb 6, 2019 at 4:19 PM Andrew Dinn <adinn at redhat.com> wrote:

> Hi Vitaly,
>
> On 06/02/2019 15:27, Vitaly Davidovich wrote:
> > Yes, I'd assume the difficulty and perceived (in)stability of a backport
> > request would be weighed in the decision to backport or not.  But, this
> > is a bug fix - javac fails on fairly pedestrian code.
>
> It may seem counter-intuitive but Brian is 100% correct in stating that
> decisions over backports require balancing of pros and cons -- even in
> cases where the proposed backport is a bug fix. Changes may have
> unintended consequences. Risk aversion sometimes trumps corrective
> action, especially when correcting a rare error case.
>
Hmm, I don't think there's anything counter-intuitive - I understand
Brian's (and your) point in general, but I was interested in this specific
bug only, not a more general backport policy.

>
> > Again, I'd imagine a javac bug of the sort here would be deemed critical
> > to backport to an LTS release.  But ok, if the answer is "refer to your
> > LTS provider", then so be it.
> What Brian specifically recommended was that you negotiated this request
> with the maintainer of a specific LTS release. When the maintainer has a
> private, proprietary tree (like, say, Oracle) the utility of such a
> request may depend on you being in a commercial, contractual
> relationship. An alternative route is to approach those maintaining the
> tree for the continuing open source project. Fixes applied to that tree
> should appear in subsequent open source LTS releases which you will be
> able to obtain without the requirement to be in a commercial,
> contractual relationship.
>
> Neither path guarantees a patch will be provided. Neither rules it out.
>
Sure.  Perhaps my impression of this bug's severity differs from reality,
but I'm having a hard time seeing a case where it doesn't require a fix in
11.  There're the unanswered questions around who'll do the backport work,
which I understand now.

>
> At this point I would normally route you straight to the jdk11u project
> maintainer -- except that the jdk11u project is in the process of being
> handed over from Oracle to an as yet unconfirmed project lead. That
> situation ought to change very soon and, when it does, I suggest you
> post to the jdk updates list (jdk-updates-dev at openjdk.java.net) asking
> whether a backport is possible.
>
Thanks, I wasn't aware of this mailing list - I'll keep that in mind going
forward.

>
> Bonus points would definitely be awarded if your request included a
> jdk11-ready version of the upstream patch in that request, preferably
> accompanied with reports of tests confirming its validity. And, as Brian
> hinted: What do points mean? a healthy open source eco-system!
>
> regards,
>
>
> Andrew Dinn
> -----------
> Senior Principal Software Engineer
> Red Hat UK Ltd
> Registered in England and Wales under Company Registration No. 03798903
> Directors: Michael Cunningham, Michael ("Mike") O'Neill, Eric Shander
>
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