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

[Ryan Jaeb]

Anthony, I see where I've misinterpreted, so I'll explain.

The bug report form has a section for attaching a test case and the "Submit
a Code Fix or Test Case" section on bugs.java.com indicates I should follow
the contributor guidelines which involves signing the OCA.  I assumed this
to mean I would be expected to sign the OCA before bugs I submit with a
test case would be considered.  From what you say, this is not the case.

I disagree that bugs.sun.com is as good as having JIRA access.  I can't see
a way to update bugs, I can't vote, I have to resort to bookmarks to follow
bugs I'm interested in, etc..  I really value the ability to vote on bugs
that affect me, so even a JIRA account with vote only access would be a
step in the right direction for me.

Ryan Jaeb


On Thu, Apr 16, 2015 at 3:19 PM, Anthony Vanelverdinghe <
anthony.vanelverdinghe at gmail.com> wrote:

> Hi
>
> First of all, the statement that "signing the Oracle Contributor Agreement
> is going to become a requirement for submitting JavaFX bugs" is clearly not
> true. Anyone can & will be able to file bug reports at bugs.java.com,
> without having to sign the OCA.
>
> While I agree bugs.java.com is in serious need of an update, I honestly
> think it's easier to submit a bug through bugs.java.com than through
> JavaFX' JIRA, simply because I don't have to log in.
>
> In my opinion, the big issue with bugs.java.com is that JBS isn't
> mentioned anywhere. So for any "casual" Java developer who hasn't heard of
> OpenJDK yet, bugs.java.com really is a black hole. However, if you know
> where to look, it's really not that hard to keep track of your reports &
> the JDK bugs that get created for it (as explained by Dalibor [1]).
>
> About the ability to comment: I think it's useful to make a distinction
> between bugs and features here.
>
> As for bugs: once a bug is reproducible or its cause is understood, I
> think the need for an ability to comment is negligible (while it may be
> useful to provide workarounds, I feel this only applies to a minority of
> the bugs & certainly doesn't justify in itself the request for general
> comment access). And I agree that JavaFX is different in this regard, in
> that it may be next to impossible to provide a simple reproducible test
> case. So I agree that there should be a trivial way for the developer and
> the bug reporter to interact, in order to pin down the problem. However, I
> think it's primarily up to the Oracle JavaFX developers themselves to
> solicit for this.
>
> As for features: the addition of the dialogs API (issue RT-12643) was
> referenced as a good example of the advantage of comments [2]. However,
> this was part of JEP 205, and every JEP has an associated mailing list for
> discussion. So I fully agree the community involvement significantly helped
> to make the dialogs API better. But I feel the discussions could equally
> well have taken place on the openjfx-dev mailing list (as has been done for
> other JEPs on their respective mailing lists already).
>
> Another reason why I'm not fond of giving everyone access to JBS, is
> demonstrated in RT-3458: people "commenting" on their favorite features,
> requesting that it be implemented ASAP or that JavaFX will otherwise die
> etc.
>
> Bottom line: as I see it, nothing much will change for me: instead of
> filling out a nice JIRA form, I'll fill out an outdated form on
> bugs.java.com
>
> Kind regards,
> Anthony Vanelverdinghe
>
> [1]
> http://mail.openjdk.java.net/pipermail/openjfx-dev/2015-April/017101.html
> [2]
> http://mail.openjdk.java.net/pipermail/openjfx-dev/2015-April/017097.html
>
>
> On 16/04/2015 21:21, Ryan Jaeb wrote:
>
>> I was very hesitant to start such a negative discussion as my first post
>> to
>> the openjfx-dev list.  The recommendation to use bugs.sun.com played a
>> large part in making me think it was necessary.  For someone like me,
>> bugs.sun.com is a "go away" page.
>>
>> The instructions for contributing, at least to me, give the impression
>> that
>> only participants that intend to become an OpenJDK (code) committer should
>> be asking to become a contributor.  The policy that only gives authors
>> write access to JBS reinforces that interpretation.  I find myself
>> thinking
>> "that's not my role in the community" and I go away.  The contributor
>> instructions I'm referring to are here:
>>
>> http://openjdk.java.net/contribute/
>>
>> In my opinion, any process that starts at bugs.sun.com is going to reduce
>> the number of people contributing JavaFX bug reports.  I understand the
>> need for a well defined process, but, once that process tips to the point
>> of being bureaucratic or cumbersome, voluntary contributors are going to
>> quit volunteering (or never start in the first place) or invent their own
>> process.
>>
>> A good example of what I mean is that it takes "at least two weeks" to
>> process the OCA.  If people have the choice between signing the OCA and
>> waiting at least two weeks to participate, or visiting a mailing list and
>> participating immediately, the official process doesn't matter.  Instead
>> of
>> moderating the bug tracker you'll end up moderating the mailing list (or
>> at
>> least trying to).
>>
>> I also think Richard is being generous with his estimates.  29% retention
>> on 2346 bug reporters means 680 people have to end up with author status
>> in
>> JBS.  The hg churn extension (`hg churn -c`) shows me 134 people with
>> commits to the openjfx repo right now.  I think that's a good indicator of
>> the number of contributors that are capable of, and interested in,
>> attaining author status.  It's not unreasonable to think that 90%+ of
>> JavaFX bug reporters are like me; they're contributing bug reports, but
>> not
>> code.
>>
>> I've never used the hg churn extension before, so I would appreciate if
>> someone is willing to double check the comitter count I've given.
>>
>> Ryan Jaeb
>>
>>
>> On Thu, Apr 16, 2015 at 9:46 AM, Richard Bair <richard.bair at oracle.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>>>
>>> If there is a way for people to comment on their issues but they just
>>> have
>>> to go through bugs.java.com instead of JBS if they aren’t authors, then
>>> it isn’t as big a deal, but I thought (and I could be totally wrong) that
>>> bugs.java.com was basically fire-and-forget for the submitter. In this
>>> case we’re alienating nearly 3/4 of our community.
>>>
>>> Richard
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
>