Re: Update on bug system for OpenJDK (web-discuss)

Wed May 25 09:52:19 UTC 2011

I actually support Andrew point of view.

Who will be able to contribute to enhance the bug tracking tool will be a selected group of people in either case, the question is, would you prefer to be this selected group limited to Oracle employees with access to the proprietary tool source code, or you want to handle it in the open like it should be and allow external contribution?

Mario

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----- Reply message -----
Da: "Mohan Pakkurti" <mohan.pakkurti at oracle.com>
Data: mer, mag 25, 2011 11:39
Oggetto: Update on bug system for OpenJDK (web-discuss)
A: "Dr Andrew John Hughes" <gnu_andrew at member.fsf.org>
Cc: <discuss at openjdk.java.net>

On May 25, 2011, at 12:36 AM, Dr Andrew John Hughes wrote:

> On 24 May 2011 21:20, Mohan Pakkurti <mohan.pakkurti at oracle.com> wrote:
>> Hi all,
>> 
>> I have posted an update on the effort to create a bug system for OpenJDK here:
>> 
>> http://mail.openjdk.java.net/pipermail/web-discuss/2011-May/000221.html
>> 
>> Please join that discussion if you have any comments.
>> 
>> Cheers
>> 
>> Mohan
>> 
> 
> The current discussion seems to be very much one-sided in favour of
> JIRA.  Here are a number of points that aren't covered and may balance
> things up:
> 
> * The language of Bugzilla (Perl) is denoted as a negative, while the
> language of JIRA (Java) is denoted as a positive.  What is the basis
> for this?  Also, how is the language relevant for JIRA when the
> application is proprietary and thus can't be modified anyway?

In the context of choosing a system for OpenJDK, my assumption is that we as a group have more expertise in Java than in Perl. Even though the language should not matter, it would be definitely easier for us in OpenJDK to contribute extensions, plugins and modifications in Java for JIRA than in Perl for Bugzilla.

> * Bugzilla is criticised for needing code modifications to achieve
> some features, but was this necessary for JIRA, it would not be
> possible.  It's not ideal that required features aren't available as
> is, but Bugzilla being FOSS means any required feature can be added.

> This is not possible with JIRA and is a major pro in choosing Bugzilla
> IMHO. What happens if JIRA is chosen and a feature is needed down the
> line that is not available?  What choices do we have to implement it,
> given we can't modify the code?

If we need new features down the line, we can try to persuade Atlassian to implement them.  And, if we are not able to get them to do that, we can implement the features ourselves.

Every licensee of JIRA gets access to the full source code. We can modify the code to develop bug fixes, customisations or additional features. 

http://www.atlassian.com/about/licensing/faq.jsp#source_code

> * The interfaces to these tools is going to matter a lot for people
> reporting bugs.  Personally, the few times I've found someone using
> JIRA (which is fairly rare), navigating its interface has been a
> nightmare for me.  Bugzilla, on the other hand, is used on many FOSS
> projects, including distros like Fedora, so users will be used to this
> interface.

User interfaces are subjective. If you feel that familiarity from work with other open source projects helps,  JIRA is used by Apache, JBoss, Hibernate and a few other projects.

http://www.atlassian.com/opensource/

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