Consolidation of JAXB/JAX-WS issues

[Alan Bateman]

On 04/04/2016 11:48, Anthony Vanelverdinghe wrote:
> Hi
>
> Recently I ran into an issue with JAXB, which I found at 
> https://java.net/jira/browse/JAXB-770 However, this issue tracker is 
> (apparently) abandoned. Currently, there seem to be 3 official places 
> where issues can be filed:
> - https://java.net/jira/browse/JAXB
> - https://github.com/gf-metro/jaxb/issues
> - https://bugs.openjdk.java.net/projects/JDK/issues ( component 
> xml/jaxb, filed through http://bugs.java.com )
>
> but only the last one seems in active use. Also note that the same 
> holds for JAX-WS:
> - https://java.net/jira/browse/JAX_WS
> - https://github.com/gf-metro/jaxws/issues
> - https://bugs.openjdk.java.net/projects/JDK/issues ( component 
> xml/jaxws, filed through http://bugs.java.com )
>
> This is confusing (because it's unclear where new issues should be 
> filed), frustrating (people who have filed issues at the original 
> issue tracker are wondering why there haven't been any updates to 
> their issues in the past few years, as shown by the JIRA's Activity 
> Stream [1]). It also causes issues to go unnoticed (e.g. JAXB-770 was 
> marked as critical 5 years ago, but has remained unresolved to date 
> since the original issue tracker is obsolete & the issue wasn't 
> migrated to the OpenJDK issue tracker).
>
> Therefore I believe the 2 non-OpenJDK issue trackers of both JAXB and 
> JAX-WS should be shut down and any unresolved issues in those issue 
> trackers should be migrated to OpenJDK. This could be done in several 
> ways, for example:
> - simply closing all unresolved issues stating something like "This 
> issue tracker is obsolete. If this issue still applies, please file a 
> bug report through bugs.java.com"
> - migrating all unresolved issues to corresponding OpenJDK issues 
> (since the original issue tracker is a JIRA instance as well, I'd 
> assume this could be automated), and closing all issues in the other 
> trackers with a link to the corresponding OpenJDK issue, or 
> redirecting the old issue directly to the new issue (as was done with 
> the old JavaFX issue tracker)
>
> Also note that the original page for JAXP [2] was updated with a 
> prominent announcement stating "Please join us at OpenJDK corelibs dev 
> and file bugs on bugs.java.com." I believe the same update should be 
> considered for the JAXB/JAX-WS pages.
>
> What's your opinion on this proposal?

I agree that it is confusing as JAXB and JAX-WS lead a double life. The 
APIs are part of Java SE but they are also shared with Java EE and are 
standalone technologies in the JCP. The sources for the reference 
implementations of these technologies is (as I understand it) maintained 
in the GlassFish Metro and related projects.

OpenJDK does have a jaxws repository with a re-packaged copy of these 
sources. If you follow the discussion on core-libs-dev then you'll see 
that the JAX-* source code is periodically refreshed from the upstream 
project. Sometimes there are bugs submitted into the JDK JIRA or via 
bugs.sun.com and those issues require coordination with the upstream 
project to avoid the code getting out of sync.

I realize this mail doesn't help with the frustration in tracking bugs 
but hopefully it gives some background.

-Alan.