JDK 7 Updates: Policy Changes

[Andrew Haley]

On 07/27/2015 04:45 PM, Andrew Hughes wrote:
> snip...
> 
>>
>> Using a separate bug database is not a real solution, though.  It's
>> not at all clear to me that we benefit substantially enough from going
>> outside the OpenJDK bug database but we lose continuity, the ability
>> to search and link bugs, and so on.  I'm not convinced that the
>> ability of non-Authors to create and edit bug reports is worth doing
>> something so different from the rest of OpenJDK.
>>
>> The semi-detached status that the OpenJDK community outside Oracle has
>> is not doing anyone any good.  It's a hangover from the days when we
>> really did need to use our own infrastructure, not something to be
>> perpetuated.  By working outside OpenJDK we also lose some of the
>> incentive to get OpenJDK itself fixed.
> 
> Well, no, I'm not proposing it as an ideal. I just want to make sure
> we have something that works for practical purposes and doesn't
> suddenly bring up admin issues in the middle of a security
> update. The semi-detached status hasn't continued for the fun of it;
> it's continued because it works and it works now, and there's an
> element of risk in switching to something else.

We would not be switching anything: we'd just be continuing to run the
7 Updates project on the same bug database it's always been run.  I
can certainly agree that OpenJDK would be a better project if it had a
proper open bug database, but I have seen nothing which convinces me
that it's something we should do as part of maintaining OpenJDK 7
Updates.  7u is a long-term maintenance project, and I don't think
that the burden of creating bugs in bugs.openjdk.java.net will be a
significant problem, let alone an overwhelming one.

> I'm still not convinced the OpenJDK project has an accessible enough
> level of infrastructure even now. Is there somewhere to host source
> tarballs? One of the reasons we started down the same external JIRA
> bug tracker route as OpenJDK 6, apart from it being well trodden,
> was that it also comes with a download facility to offer the source
> code release tarballs. I'm not aware of an equivalent facility
> within OpenJDK, which would mean we still end up having to set up
> somewhere else to host releases.

Sure, we might well end up needing somewhere else to host releases.
That's a separate issue.

Andrew.