Client Libraries Group consolidation proposal

[Iris Clark]

Hi.

Since no objections were raised when the affected Groups were
consulted [0-3], I'd like to solicit final comments on the creation
of the Client Libraries Group with Phil Race as the Lead.

The Client Libraries Group is the consolidation of the members and
interests of the existing AWT [4], 2D [5], Swing [6], and Sound [7]
Groups. These individual Groups were created at the 2007 launch of
OpenJDK partially following the organizational structure of Sun's
existing development groups, which partially followed the separate
nature of each of these areas.

At least one Group (Sound), has always been too narrow an area to
Attract sufficient interest to justify a Group but it became one since
it didn't obviously belong to another Group.  While individual Group
members continue to focus in their specialization area, there has been
an increasing overlap in code responsibilities and the individuals
working on them.  Some of this became apparent in the OSX port as AWT
members operated as de facto members of Swing and so forth.  Unifying
these Groups will more realistically reflect the actual community and
make it more apparent where sub-areas such as sound, beans, and
accessibility should be discussed.

The new Group will sponsor the OpenJFX [8], XRender Pipeline [9], and
Harfbuzz [10] Projects.  Over time the Group's mailing lists, static
web pages, etc. will be coalesced at the discretion of the Lead.

Phil is the OpenJDK Group Lead for the 2D and Sound Groups.  He has
been a member of the Java 2D graphics team on JDK since 1999 and has
contributed hundreds, if not thousands, of changesets to client code
over that period.  Phil is the specification lead for JSR 15 Image I/O
Framework Specification and JSR 6 Unified Printing API.

The proposed set of initial Members is the union of the Members of the
2D, AWT, Swing, and Sound Groups.

If there are no objections to this Group consolidation by Tuesday
18 April, the OpenJDK Lead will simultaneously ask the Governing Board
to create the new Group and dissolve the AWT, 2D, Swing, and Sound
Groups as described in the Bylaws [11].  The long-inactive Framebuffer
Toolkit Project [12] will be dissolved by virtue of losing its
sponsoring Group.

Thanks,
Iris

[0]: http://mail.openjdk.java.net/pipermail/awt-dev/2015-February/008950.html
[1]: http://mail.openjdk.java.net/pipermail/2d-dev/2015-February/005074.html
[2]: http://mail.openjdk.java.net/pipermail/swing-dev/2015-February/004193.html
[3]: http://mail.openjdk.java.net/pipermail/sound-dev/2015-February/000260.html
[4]: http://openjdk.java.net/census#awt
[5]: http://openjdk.java.net/census#2d
[6]: http://openjdk.java.net/census#swing
[7]: http://openjdk.java.net/census#sound
[8]: http://openjdk.java.net/census#openjfx
[9]: http://openjdk.java.net/census#xrender
[10]: http://openjdk.java.net/census#harfbuzz
[11]: http://openjdk.java.net/bylaws#_4
[12]: http://openjdk.java.net/census#fbtoolkit