[modules-discuss] questions on status

[Stephen J. McConnell]

On Wed, 2007-11-28 at 16:42 -0800, Stanley M. Ho wrote:
> Hi Steve,
> 
> I have been on family leave on and off in the last few weeks, and I 
> apologize that this reply took much longer than I would like.
> 
> > Stephen J. McConnell wrote:
> >> To the 277 community at large:
> >>
> >> Some questions on status:
> >>
> >>   (a) The comments below reference a pending strawman document, 
> >>       however, about 5 months ago another strawman document was 
> >>       referenced (the service and service provider support 
> >>       document) but that document was restricted to EG members
> >>       pending Sanley Ho's resolution of JCP rules via a request for 
> >>       clarification to the JCP PMO.  I would like to know if 
> >>       the JCP PMO raised any issues that would prevent publication, 
> >>       and if so, what those issues were?  
> 
> Although the code is developed on OpenJDK under GPL, the spec (including 
> the strawman) is developed in the JCP under a different license. To 
> release this strawman to the public, it will come with a license. It can 
> either be made available on the JSR community page on jcp.org, or on 
> openjdk.java.net. However, the former would mean that the strawman is 
> only accessible by JCP members because it will require login, and I 
> don't think this is what we want. 

This option is viable assuming login conditions do not impose
unreasonable conditions on the contributions or potential actions of
contributors - however - if I understand correctly this option correctly
we are talking about the addition of members to the expert group and
given earlier discussion on this subject I'm presuming this is not an
option (even though the expert group have been resounding silent with
respect to technical opinion in the last few months).  Perhaps some
culling and rejuvenation is needed?  Clearly there has been the blitz by
the OSGI community but to be frank - it hasn't been backed up by
technical argument (on the service management side of the equation) -
but more to the point there has been next to nothing from the members
representing Maven or Ivy (but if you do some digging its reasonable to
assume that both of these communities are following the process as
opposed to contributing to the questions of effective repository
management). But this is only scraping the surface (take the
underwhelming contribution of the ASF as an example).

To get the point:

a) you have an expert group composed of members with vested interests
for the most part are waiting in the wings to see what you and your team
can come up with (largely because none of them can claim the moral high
ground on this subject)

b) an internal development team are pushing content into the OpenJDK
process that is dealing with the public content but at the same time
specifically ignoring the "JCP private content" (e.g. nothing in the
code base for service loader that deals with 277) - and no discussion on
this within OpenJDJ lists - but wait a sec - this is because of the
licensing issues?  The 294 project published its ideas (strawman
documents) to the public without recourse to an internal "legal team" or
was that just an anomaly?

> Alternatively, in the latter case, the 
> strawman will require a click-through license mechanism in place. This 
> is the option I am leaning towards, and we've been waiting for the 
> mechanism to be ready.

My position is that I don't want to be presented with inhibitors to my
own objectives.  I am working on applications that have a direct and
immediate impact on 20 million people. I know that a solution dealing
with modularisation will have a significant impact on service delivery.
Things we do will save many lives.  In offline communications from
several months ago I have comments to imminent resolution to the
click-though theme - sorry - but this is not sufficient.  Either give me
a real and tangible deadline or give me the name and email address of
the person responsible.

> 
> >>   (b) Will the interoperability strawman be subject to the same 
> >>       closed review process or can we expect imminent publication
> >>       without legal constraint?
> 
> The interoperability strawman will be subjected to the same process.


I should note my personal priorities - I have zero interest in the
interoperability question (and it was not a subject of the initial JSR).
What I want to see is the real working solution.  I should note that
given the absence of comments in the public over the last couple of
months I'm assuming that a fight is ensuing under private lists.  If
this is true - then do the rest of us a favour and kill the process and
force the discussion into the public domain.  I know I have a few
thought of my own that I could add to the process.


> >>   (c) Have any actions been taken to eliminate the requirement 
> >>       for people interested in JSR 277 to accept the license 
> >>       constraints associated with the initial draft specification 
> >>       document (this has been and remains an issue in terms of 
> >>       engaging a broader FOSS community in the evaluation of the 
> >>       277 work)?  In particular - can be look forward to the 
> >>       publication of the second edition of the draft specification
> >>       under the GPL?
> 
> This is the way things have been so far. Onno Kluyt in JCP PMO has 
> recently started a new round of discussion on this with our fine legal 
> minds, and the discussion is ongoing. It is unlikely that there will be 
> changes in this aspect in the second EDR, but I can't say for sure for 
> future editions of the spec down the road.

When it comes to matter of legality - I am not out of my depth.  Could
you please ask Onno Kluyt to contact me directly (or even better - get
Onno Kluyt to post his opinions to this list directly).  This is the
OpenJDK and for better or worse - this is an open process.  Frankly -
this 'open-theme' is not something that earlier JCP initiatives had to
deal with - but it is a reality now.  What I want is ideas, scratch-pad
initiatives, opinions (for and against), code as the basis of argument,
and at the end of the day "anything published is fair gaim" (and to be
specific here - what I mean is that anything published under GPL is
there for the taking, change and publication of alternative realities).


> >>   (d) Is anyone on the 277 EG working with the IcedTea project 
> >>       to establish an installable modules prototype?  In my opinion
> >>       a working distribution of the modules system would be very
> >>       valuable and generate a greater level of community 
> >>       involvement.
> 
> We're not aware any EG member working with IcedTea at this point. That 
> said, we hope the community would involve and start the effort if this 
> is important to the community. That's the purpose of open source after all!

According to my analysis the vast majority of code dealing with 294 and
277 can be compiled against SE6. This would imply that we (the real
world community) could (in theory) build and compile a deployment
platform based on the 294/277 ideas.  In practise the 294 solution is
not yet in place (real specs not in place yet but there is promise if we
are optimistic about recent posts on relevant lists).  The 277 stuff is
a little more painful because it ties us in to native solutions with the
java command line - but in reality this is academic - the reality is
that we should be able top run up a 277 solution of SE6 (but nothing in
the codebase is enabling this scenario).

Rapping up:
I've been communicating with 277 member since 2005.  Its now 2007 and on
one hand there has been a lot of progress - the draft spec and the
OpenJDK Modules codebase. During that period I have watched a lot of
hummis from the OSGI community (but not a lot of substance).  I have
watched a lot of ducking and weaving on the JCP side of things.  I have
not seen anything on the service deployment model aside from
announcements of private documents.  

Stanley - it ain't good enough.  

I want code, I want justification, I want opposing opinion. 

/Steve.


> - Stanley

-- 
Stephen J. McConnell
mailto:mcconnell at dpml.net
http://www.dpml.net
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