Are JBS' policies flexible enough to welcome the JavaFX community?

[Ryan Jaeb]

Hi Everyone,

I'm hopping over from openjfx-dev at openjdk.java.net where it was recently
announced the current JavaFX bug tracker is going to be merged into JBS.

I'm concerned the current JBS policies are too exclusionary to be a good
fit for the JavaFX community.  As is, the merge is going to have an
immediate, detrimental effect on the JavaFX community and, in turn, a long
term detrimental effect on the quality of JavaFX.  There are two points of
concern:

1) Signing the Oracle Contributor Agreement is going to become a
requirement for submitting JavaFX bugs.
2) Reaching the role of author to gain the privileged of submitting bugs,
commenting on bugs, and voting on bugs is going to be out of reach for many
members of the JavaFX community.

Both of these are going to be too great a barrier to entry for many members
of the JavaFX community.  The JavaFX community is much smaller than the
OpenJDK community, so the effect of deterring community members from
contributing is going to have a much greater impact than it has on a large
project like the OpenJDK.

I feel like submitting bug reports, but not patches, is what allows me to
provide the most value in terms of contributing back to the JavaFX
community.  The requirements to become a JBS author will exclude me from
the community once the merge happens.

I would like to know what policy changes can be made for JBS to do a better
job of accommodating the JavaFX community.  If anyone would like to see
more detailed concerns, I encourage you to visit the openjfx-dev archives
and skim the discussion that follows the original announcement.  Many valid
points have been made with regards to the detrimental effect the merge will
have on the JavaFX community.

Ryan Jaeb