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

[Ryan Jaeb]

I realize that the lifting the OCA requirement is basically impossible.  I
included it in the original topic because others mentioned it as a
concern.  I completely understand why it needs to be a requirement and I
don't think anyone can fault Oracle if they're non-negotiable on having
contributors sign the OCA.

In my case, Mario is correct.  The author requirement is the issue.  It may
not seem like a big deal to someone who's a veteran code committer, but,
classifying myself as an OpenJDK user, just getting to the point where I
could create, build, and test a patch locally would be a fair amount of
work.  Suffice it to say that, for me, trying to achieve an author status
isn't a good use of my time if all I want to do report bugs as I encounter
them.

I don't think bugs.sun.com is a good solution.  It's antiquated.  It's also
not reasonable to expect people like me to sign the OCA and go through the
extra effort necessary to create a good bug report if those contributions
aren't valued enough to warrant the ability to comment or vote on the bugs
we're discovering.

I think it's far more likely that people like me will use other sources for
reporting issues; the OTN forums, the mailing lists, StackOverflow, etc..
No one has to sign the OCA to participate in that manner.  If people like
me are forced out of the official bug reporting system you're not only
losing those contributions, but you're encouraging everyone to make those
contributions in a manner that's not going to be covered by the OCA.

Mario's suggestion to have new users sign the OCA, contribute via the
mailing list, and be promoted to a more permissive role in JBS would work
for me.  I also think it leaves the door open for new community members as
long as they're willing to make a reasonable amount of effort.  The only
thing I'll add is that I think an openjfx-users list would probably be
worth considering.

Ryan Jaeb

On Thu, Apr 16, 2015 at 7:16 AM, Mario Torre <neugens at redhat.com> wrote:

>
> I personally think the real pain point here is the inability to file bug
> reports if you are not an Author.
>
> """
> An Author for a Project is a Contributor who has been granted the right
> to create changesets intended to be pushed into a specific Project’s
> code repositories, but does not have the right to push such changesets
> directly.
> """
>
> Where:
>
> """
> A Contributor is a Participant who has signed the Oracle Contributor
> Agreement (OCA), or who works for an organization that has signed that
> agreement or its equivalent and makes contributions within the scope of
> that work and subject to that agreement. A Contributor may submit
> changes larger than a simple patch, may propose new Projects, and may
> take on various roles within Groups and Projects.
> """
>
> I think the bug database should be write accessible to Contributors with
> an history of quality contributions, not necessarily patches.
>
> This basically means that a contributor could still file bug reports (at
> the beginning on the mailing list, until she gets the appropriate trust
> points, then on the JBS) without requiring to submit patches.
>
> After all, a good bug report *is* a quality contribution.
>
> I wish the OCA requirement could be lifted for such contribution, but I
> don't think in all honesty this will ever happen.
>
> Btw, what are the numbers here? How many people do usually contribute to
> OpenJFX that are not in the in the position to become Authors?
>
> Cheers.
> Mario
>
>
>