Preparing for EDR: Issue summary

[mark.reinhold at oracle.com]

Last September I proposed an initial design as the starting point for the
specification to be produced for this JSR [1].

Feedback on that design from Java developers and from library and tool
maintainers, via e-mail and in person at three major conferences (JavaOne
2015, Devoxx BE 2015, and Jfokus 2016), has been generally positive yet,
as expected, some important issues have been raised.

Here in the EG we've discussed some specific aspects of the proposed
design.  We've also discussed, at a high level, some completely different
approaches, but none of the latter has gained traction.

At this point I'd like to move forward with the proposed design, with an
aim to publish an Early Draft Review fairly soon.  As a first step toward
that milestone I've prepared a list of open issues in this design [2]
gathered from the JSR 376 e-mail lists (EG, comments, and observers) and
the OpenJDK jigsaw-dev list.

We need not resolve all, or even any, of these issues for the EDR, but we
should do our best to make sure that the issue list is complete.  If you
think any important issues are missing, or if any of the existing issue
summaries could be improved, then please suggest specific additions or
revisions.

The issue list is meant to be a living document, updated regularly as
work progresses.  Each issue is assigned a unique hash tag for use in
the e-mail messages and other textual media in which the issues will be
discussed so that such discussions can be discovered, tracked, and
summarized.  To that end, if you wish to open a thread on an issue then
please make sure to include its hash tag in the subject line of your
message.

- Mark


[1] http://mail.openjdk.java.net/pipermail/jpms-spec-experts/2015-September/000092.html
[2] http://openjdk.java.net/projects/jigsaw/spec/issues/