Future jdk9u updates & 9-critical-request

[Andrew Hughes]

On 6 February 2018 at 10:49, dalibor topic <dalibor.topic at oracle.com> wrote:

snip...

>> The problem here occurred because this release was performed behind
>> the scenes and then the code for it dumped in the repository afterwards.
>
> Indeed, every CPU release has been and will be developed in the same way.
> The scenery and actors may change, thanks to the Vulnerabilty Group, but the
> happy end won't. ;)

Or unhappy end in this case. ;)

So we can expect more broken releases in the future?

>
>> There was no opportunity for anyone in the OpenJDK community to test
>> it before release.
>
>
> That's not correct. The OpenJDK 9.0.4 release was tested by developers at
> Oracle. Judging by http://db.openjdk.java.net/people it seems that Oracle
> employees represent at least a small part of the overall OpenJDK Community.
> ;)

I'm sure you know what I mean; some of the Oracle employees who have access
to the release before it happens may also be part of the OpenJDK community,
but that's irrelevant in determining whether or not they have such access. They
may be a member of that community, but they are not just "anyone".

We at Red Hat also had access to some of the patches that formed part of that
release ahead of time - that's how fixes for Zero & AArch64 were developed -
but I wouldn't claim that it was as members of the OpenJDK community, and
there may well be others who had access and aren't part of said community.

>
>> My concern is that the process from request
>> to approval is not transparent.
>
> Push requests can be tracked here:
> https://bugs.openjdk.java.net/issues/?jql=labels%20%3D%209-critical-request%20ORDER%20BY%20updated%20DESC
>
> When they get approved, they appear here:
> https://bugs.openjdk.java.net/browse/JDK-8194739?jql=labels%20%3D%209-critical-approved%20ORDER%20BY%20updated%20DESC
>
> When they get pushed, they appear here:
> http://hg.openjdk.java.net/jdk-updates and also at
> http://mail.openjdk.java.net/pipermail/jdk-updates-changes/
>
> For example, Martin's recent push is listed at
> http://mail.openjdk.java.net/pipermail/jdk-updates-changes/2018-January/000017.html
>

All of which I'm aware of and they don't cover the process between
request and approval.

>> With 8u, I've been able to search for the mails on a backport and
>> discovered why
>> it was approved and why changes were made in the backport. How is the same
>> achieved for 9u and on?
>
>
> It is much easier to search JBS than mailing lists.
>

I find they are roughly similar for searching. Maybe you need a better
mail client if not?
The important part of that sentence was the second part.

> For example, https://bugs.openjdk.java.net/browse/JDK-8194739 is Severin's
> push approval for Zero fixes - it contains a justification, a link to the
> review thread (on the wrong mailing list, though: posts to jdk9-dev are
> unlikely to be seen by reviewers once the release reaches GA), and a
> 9-critical-approval label.

Well, it shows a couple of comments from Severin that would be the equivalent
of an initial e-mail to the list. My concern is the lack of the part
after that; there's
no indication of who approved it or why.

Being an approval, that may be a bad example. Is there a case where an issue
was rejected with some explanation? My experience in the past has been that
someone just decides behind the scenes and sets the reject flag, with no
discussion.

See:

https://bugs.openjdk.java.net/browse/JDK-8162384?jql=labels%20%3D%208u-cpu-critical-reject

>
> cheers,
> dalibor topic
>
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-- 
Andrew :)

Senior Free Java Software Engineer
Red Hat, Inc. (http://www.redhat.com)

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