OpenJDK governing board, constitution

[Andrew Haley]

Neal Gafter wrote:

>> On Wed, 2009-01-07 at 19:15 -0800, Neal Gafter wrote:

>>> The OpenJDK governing board, having had its life extended by a
>>> year, is now scheduled to dissolve in four months, with two of its
>>> non-Sun positions remaining unfilled.  The last published meeting
>>> minutes were from April 2008, at which it was agreed that the GB
>>> would strive for a draft Constitution by the end of 2008.

>>> Who are the seven members of the governing board?  Can we please
>>> see the minutes of meetings after April, and get a status report
>>> on the Constitution?

> The reason I ask is that I'm worried that openJDK may turn into the
> defacto mechanism for features getting into the platform.  The JCP
> used to play that role, but there has been little activity in
> forming a JSR for Java SE 7 in the past few years.  I've noticed
> that openjdk7 is more and more being called Java 7, JDK7, etc, even
> though it doesn't implement a platform specification approved by the
> JCP.  If openjdk is to become the mechanism by which features are
> added to the platform,

I don't see how that can happen.  For Java SE 7 to be released there
must be a platform specification, and there must be a TCK.  openjdk7
is a bunch of packages slated for Java SE 7 that may or may not get to
be in the platform.

> it would be better for the governance model to acknowledge and support that.

It would, yes, but it would be a huge change.

In the past there have undoubtedly been developments very much like
the openjdk7 tree, where platform integration has proceeded prior to
the formal platform specification.  This is essential: you need to
make sure that a design works in a reasonable way before its
specification is finalized.  The only difference now is that the
openjdk7 tree is open.

Andrew.