Update on bug system for OpenJDK (web-discuss)

[Mohan Pakkurti]

On May 25, 2011, at 3:06 PM, Volker Simonis wrote:

> 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").

Yes, the OpenJDK bug system will be the authoritative bug system for use by all 
people involved in the development processes for the JDK, both outside and inside 
Oracle. 

Oracle engineers will use another internal system for customer issues and these 
internal bug reports could point to issues in the OpenJDK system.


> 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
>> 
>>