JDK 8 end-game details and proposal for making a few exceptions

[Mathias Axelsson]

Hi,

JDK 8 is making progress towards the planned GA date of March 18, 2014.
During the summer we entered rampdown phase 1 [1] where the bar was raised
in terms of what bugs can be fixed (only P1-P3 issues). Our next milestone
is Zero Bug Bounce (ZBB, [1]) where the focus is addressing the backlog of
bugs targeted to the JDK 8 release so that we only have showstopper issues
left to address.

ZBB is targeted for October 24, but since ZBB is a criterion and not a point
in time we cannot declare that we've hit ZBB until the criterion has been
met. For JDK 7 it took us a few weeks beyond the planned ZBB date until we
hit the criterion. 

We've been monitoring the number of bugs targeted to JDK 8 and for product
bugs we're in fairly good shape to get to ZBB. However for some areas we
need a little more time and therefore we are proposing to make an exception
for three areas:

- Documentation bugs (e.g. Java API docs) should be allowed to be fixed
  until Dec 12 unless they affect the product build. For doc bugs that
  affects the product build (e.g. man pages) the regular milestone dates
  must apply.
- Test stabilization bugs should be allowed to be fixed until Dec 12
- JavaFX should be allowed to fix P1-P3 issues until Dec 5 to ensure the
  quality of FX is good enough when we ship JDK 8.

The reason doc bugs affecting the product must follow the regular milestone
dates is because we will be translating some of these. We've provided
translation drops throughout the release and only have one more planned
translation cycle (for showstopper issues). This translation drop will be
cut on October 24 so therefore any critical issues that impact translation
must be in the JDK 8 master no later than October 24.

The above proposed exceptions assumes that all the fixes are in the JDK 8
master at the proposed date and will thus have to take into account the
extra time needed to integrate the fixes from the team repos into the
master. We are proposing to grant exceptions for these to ensure the
documentation would be as good as possible when we ship JDK 8. Regarding
test stabilization this work is very important as well to ensure the tests
are stable and produce predictable results. We will not be done with the
test stabilization in JDK 8 and will continue to work in this area in future
update releases but we want to give the teams some extra time to address as
much as possible before we ship JDK 8.

Please let us know if you see any issues with the above proposal.

Another milestone that we set up when we planned JDK 8 was the API/interface
freeze milestone. The date for this milestone was set to October 10 which
means API and interface changes must now focus only on showstopper issues.
The reasons we're raising the bar is to ensure the amount of changes going
on in the JSRs goes down so that the JCK and standalone TCK development team
can complete their work in time for the release next year. The Java /
Technology Compliance Kit team need to ensure the tests match the
specification and thus they need some extra time to complete their work once
the specification changes has been completed. The TCK development is
required for the JSR activity and standardization in the Java Community
Process (JCP). Another reason we are raising the bar is to make sure there
is enough time to test and bake the changes before we ship JDK 8.

Please note that APIs and interfaces for Java SE 8 JSRs can go through
changes until the Final Approval Ballot has been completed and the Java SE 8
specification has been approved. The intent of the API/interface freeze
milestone is to ensure that focus shifts to only address showstopper issues
and that bigger changes are not taking place at this stage.

Release bug dashboard
With the JDK Bug System opened up you can use the JDK 8 release bug
dashboard [2] to see what bugs are in scope for the release.

The release bug dashboard will give you details about unresolved issues that
are being investigated but it also provides details about what has been
deferred to a later release. It will also provide you with insight into what
showstopper issues are being investigated or requested to be fixed in JDK
(called critical watch/critical request in the dashboard).

I hope that you will find the release bug dashboard helpful and that it will
allow for more transparency in terms of what bugs are in scope for the JDK 8
release.

Later milestones (heads up)
Here are some details about upcoming milestones and the end-game for JDK 8.

- On November 21 we will go into rampdown phase 2 [1]. At that stage only
  showstopper bugs will be allowed to be fixed.
- On January 14, 2014 we will integrate the January CPU fixes into the JDK
  8 master to ensure that JDK 8 includes the latest security fixes. We
  cannot integrate the fixes until the CPU release has gone live, hence the
  late integration date. We are going to test the CPU fixes out internally
  at Oracle prior to these being integrated to mitigate the risk of
  integrating these late in the JDK 8 release.
- In case any issues are raised after we've integrated the Jan CPU fixes we
  have some buffer time between Jan 14 and the deadline for when we must
  have built the final release candidate for JDK 8 and start final testing.
  For all intents and purposes everyone must assume that all fixes are
  completed and in the JDK 8 master before January 14, 2014, since we may
  cut the final release candidate as soon as the CPU fixes has been
  integrated.

Outstanding Updates
I will make sure we post details about the critical and deferral process on
the OpenJDK web site at least a couple of weeks prior to entering rampdown
phase 2 so you know what the process is.

Kind regards,
Mathias Axelsson, Oracle JDK 8 release manager

[1] http://openjdk.java.net/projects/jdk8/milestones

[2] https://bugs.openjdk.java.net/secure/Dashboard.jspa?selectPageId=12078