CFV: New Project: CRaC

[Jesper Wilhelmsson]

Obviously the discussion will continue after the project has been created and go on as long as the project is active, but the initial discussion that happens before the project is created has a different purpose than the discussion that follows the creation. It's a matter of determining what the actual goal is, and it's also a matter of making sure everyone who is expected to participate in the project later feels welcome and included already from start. Adding Committers later is obviously possible but there's a process around it that requires the potential Committer to prove her/himself worthy before being accepted into the group. This can be a quite large mental blocker for some people. Being included from the start will encourage people to be more active and devoted to the project.

Looking at the current project description and the initial set of Committers/Reviewers I can't help but wondering what the purpose of this project is. Is the goal to investigate a generic problem area, or is the goal to get your prototype productized and pushed? Both are perfectly valid goals of a project, but the project description should clearly state what the goal is. The interest from others to join and contribute to the project depends very much on which one of these two goals is the actual goal. How many different approaches are you prepared to investigate within this project? Are you prepared to throw your prototype away if some other team enters the project with a better suited solution? There are already several prototypes in this area trying different approaches but the project description clearly states that this project is about your prototype.

So far I haven't sen enough evidence that this project is about the generic research of a problem space. If I am to ask my friends at the university to look at this, I first want to make sure it's a research project, not just a finish someone else's implementation project.

/Jesper

> 6 aug. 2021 kl. 10:04 skrev Anton Kozlov <akozlov at azul.com>:
> 
> On 8/5/21 9:33 PM, Mario Torre wrote:
>> However, like others I feel that there was not enough engagement and not enough discussion to put the basis for a project just yet. It has been mentioned that there are others exploring this problem space and this highlights the need to have a common infrastructure, however some of the comments coming from developers of said projects were largely ignored or dismissed even if they did offer some good points of discussion, so that doesn’t seem consequential.
> 
> If that happened, it was not intentional. I'm asking a pardon in advance. If
> you'd point to the comments I overlooked, that would be very helpful.
> 
> The Project is the first step to the common infrastructure, where at least we
> start moving technical discussions and combining all different efforts.
> 
>> Also, as was again mentioned already, some more people could contribute to the discussion, but the timing has bee so short, especially considering we're at the end of July/beginning of August, and many of us had noticed the project discussion only while on vacation (including me) without much chance to contribute.
> 
> I'm sorry for this. There was enough traffic on the discuss maillist for me to
> assume the timing was OK. But it is always possible to add more
> committers/reviewers to the project. The proposed Project is a long-running
> activity, so I hope the discussions will always keep going. As a result, the
> specific goals, artifacts, contributors are going to change over time.
> 
>> I think this project has the opportunity to be extremely promising, but it needs to go beyond the small set of original committers and include more groups, and engage in a bit more discussion to better define its premises. In my opinion, but apparently also in the opinion of others here, the overlapping with other groups is significant, and it's a concern for me that this is not recognised, for this reason I suggest to take a little extra time to reflect back on the problems we're trying to solve before requesting a formal project, and maintain the goal to commit to have an inclusive and wider audience of JVM and core JDK developers, including the security group.
> 
> I acknowledge that the integration of some deliverables of the Project needs
> close cooperation with the OpenJDK community.   But it will be crucial in the
> later stages of the Project when pieces will become ready for integration (so
> far they are not). At the current very early stage it is important to establish
> a common place and bring all discussion there. It seems we don't completely
> understand all requirements from different parties, so there is no point to ask
> for a review of details, before they may change. And as usual, there is a
> trade-off possible when some concerns can be outweighed by the usefulness of
> the result. The edge between completely useless but flawless implementation and
> a very useful one but with known limitations is moveable. The effects of some
> decisions are best observed in practice and prototypes.
> 
> The Project can assure the contributions are done properly. So far, I'm not
> sure enough people have looked at the prototype, as it is hosted in a
> third-party repo, not covered by OCA for example, so I can imagine possible
> concerns from the legal point of view. The Project will serve as a place where
> collaboration can happen.
> 
> So I don't see how more discussion before creating the Project will help to get
> the idea moving, but I see a benefit of having the Project.
> 
>> Also, I really, really encourage you to change the name :) but that’s probably just me being pedantic.
> 
> The abbreviation is short, pronounceable, and accidentally reflects what
> happens with the execution (there are "cracks" in the timeline of the Java
> lifecycle). The Project name has leaked into API, but this may be changed
> later.
> 
> Thanks,
> Anton