Welcome to CSR discuss, conversations on reviewing compatibility and specifications

[joe darcy]

Hello and welcome to csr-discuss, the discussion alias for the 
compatibility and specification review OpenJDK group.

I'd like to work toward getting CSR reviews operational for JDK 10 
changes within the next few weeks in anticipation of the JDK 10 lead 
asking the CSR to review changes in JDK 10. [1]

For that review initiation to occur, several items need to happen including:

* Configuration changes to the JDK Bug System, JBS 
(https://bugs.openjdk.java.net), to support a CSR issue type. Inside 
Oracle, we are working through feedback on earlier iterations of the 
issue type.

* More fundamentally, documentation and discussion about what role the 
CSR process plays in JDK development. The predecessor ccc process has 
historically played a number of roles including ensuring high-quality 
specifications, providing feedback to API developers, and creating an 
archive of changes as they occur. I expect those broad roles to continue 
under CSR.

* Writing documentation for users of CSR, covering both the conceptual 
rationale for CSR review as well as the current details of the tooling 
in JBS. The documentation set may include an update of "OpenJDK 
Developers' Guide, Version 0.777" [2], which contains a detailed 
discussion of compatibility concerns.

On the logistics of accomplishing the above, I'd like to use the the 
wiki page for the CSR group

     https://wiki.openjdk.java.net/display/csr/Main

to host the documentation. For using the new issue type, I think it 
would be helpful to import a number of the ccc requests approved in JDK 
9 as CSR issues in JBS in a separate "CCC" project. I'll be screening my 
JDK 9 ccc requests for this purpose, several dozen in total, and invite 
other CSR members who have filed ccc requests for JDK 9 to do the same. 
These imported requests will show the range of some of the kinds of 
changes the CSR will review, API changes, language updates, command-line 
flags, etc., and provide exemplars of requests for new users. I think 
seeing a concrete range of kinds of changes in CSR requests will help 
foster a better informed discussion than just talking about CSR requests 
in the abstract.

I'll be working on the documentation and will send portions out for 
review as they become sufficiently mature and will keep the group 
apprised on when the ccc requests in JBS will be available for viewing.

Comments?

Thanks,

-Joe

[1] 
http://mail.openjdk.java.net/pipermail/gb-discuss/2017-January/000320.html

[2] 
http://cr.openjdk.java.net/~darcy/OpenJdkDevGuide/OpenJdkDevelopersGuide.v0.777.html