RFR: Get agreement before PR

[Andrew Haley]

On Tue, 13 May 2025 22:07:44 GMT, Jesper Wilhelmsson <jwilhelm at openjdk.org> wrote:

>> src/guide/contributing-to-an-open-jdk-project.md line 65:
>> 
>>> 63: ### 3. Find a Sponsor
>>> 64: 
>>> 65: Socializing your change on the mailing lists also prevents the surprise that would otherwise make the community choke on their morning coffee when they see a huge patch in a new, unknown PR. As a new developer in the community you'll need to make a few friends that agree with your change. There are many good reasons to make friends, but the one relevant here is that for your first changes you'll need a [Sponsor](https://openjdk.org/bylaws#sponsor) to facilitate the integration of your work. The [Sponsor](https://openjdk.org/bylaws#sponsor) will perform any number of administrative tasks like JBS updates, additional testing, etc. It's usual for a [Sponsor](https://openjdk.org/bylaws#sponsor) to also be a reviewer of a change and thus familiar with it, but it's not a requirement.
>> 
>> Imho "for your first changes" is misleading here. I contributed lots of commits, but still do need a sponsor even after years. We should find a wording which does not give the impression that contributing many commits over several years will change anything on the fact that a sponsor *still* is mandatory for each PR.
>
> If I'm not mistaken you have contributed 16 changes over the last three and a half year. I haven't looked at them in detail, but provided these aren't trivial changes or changes that caused more harm than good, you should be eligible for a Committer role in the JDK project and thereby not be needing a Sponsor.

Socializing your change on the mailing lists also prevents the surprise that would otherwise make the community choke on their morning coffee when they see a huge patch in a new, unknown PR.


This makes me feel a bit uneasy. To "socialize your change" is much easier for people who are part of a community – in effect, those who are already insiders, but it's hard for a newcomer to know where to start. While I agree that this sentence accurately reflects the reality of the OpenJDK project, socializing is not an easy thing for many people.

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PR Review Comment: https://git.openjdk.org/guide/pull/150#discussion_r2119291031