Update on bug system for OpenJDK (web-discuss)

[Volker Simonis]

Besides the question about the license of the data which is very
important in my opinion as well I would like to raise the question if
the new bug database will be for OpenJDK ONLY or if it will cover all
the bugs for OpenJDK AND for the proprietary Oracle JDK together.

One of the biggest problems the current OpenJDK bug trackimg system
(https://bugs.openjdk.java.net/) suffers from is that it is just the
"little sibling" or even "orphan" of the "real" bug tracker (I think
its name is bugster) at Oracle which is the single bug authority
currently used by the JDK developers at Oracle. The only public window
into this "bugster" thing is  bugs.sun.com and probably every external
OpenJDK developer knows its problems:

1. it doesn't show all the bugs (because of security reasons, because
of licensing issues, because of incomprehensible reasons)
2. if it shows a bug, it doesn't show all of the fields (same reasons as above)
3. entering bugs from outside Oracle is very cumbersome

The question is now if the new "OpenJDK" bug system will resolve these
issues and if it will be the single authoritative bug system for
OpenJDK ("the project which produces open source" to speak with
Stephen Colebourne's words) AND the OracleJDK ("the project behind the
project which produces open source").

Regards,
Volker

On Wed, May 25, 2011 at 1:02 PM, Mike Milinkovich
<mike.milinkovich at eclipse.org> wrote:
>
>> > What you shoud be asking for is open/free *data* from the bug tracking
>> > system (via a free to use API). If the data submitted to the bug
>> > system is privately owned by Oracle then you have an impediment to
>> > forking. The actual system the data resides in is pretty much
>> > irrelevant. (ie. with open data, you could write a tool to mirror JIRA
>> > into a Bugzilla instance and use Bugzilla if you really wanted to)
>>
>> That's true.  The legal ownership of the data also matters.
>
> Assuming that the bug database would be covered by the OpenJDK terms of
> use[1], a quick read says that Oracle aggregates a pretty complete license
> to any content contributed, but not ownership. (This may be different for
> those who have actually signed an OCA.) The licenses to the content would be
> the license of the project or the New BSD unless otherwise noted.
>
> IMHO, the license that the data is made available under is the more
> important factor than the ownership. At Eclipse, for example, the ownership
> of the content in the bug database is highly diffused. The right to fork,
> duplicate, create derivative works, etc. comes from the license.
>
> IANAL.
>
> [1] http://openjdk.org/legal/terms.html
>
>