F22 System Wide Change: Legacy implementations of the Java platform in Fedora

[Mikolaj Izdebski]

On 02/24/2015 02:15 PM, Jiri Vanek wrote:
> On 02/24/2015 12:43 PM, Mikolaj Izdebski wrote:
>> I am against official guidelines or policy for legacy JDK packages. I
>> don't think that any such policy is needed and it would only encourage
>> adoption of old packages for which there might be no security updates.
> 
> Well thats the point - people are calling for them. And wont to maintain
> them with this risk.

I thought that the point of this change proposal was "enabling community
to maintain legacy JDKs", not encouraging people to package them without
good reason or without involvement to truly maintaining them. Packaging
older JDKs is *already* possible, so IMHO this change accomplishes
nothing but showing people how they can dump old, unmaintained software
into Fedora.

>> Currently anyone is allowed to maintain legacy JDKs in Fedora according
>> to general rules, so this change proposal does not "enable" maintenance
>> of legacy JDKs.
> 
> It is not true. We were killing old packages withut handling the
> owenership or maintainerships to others.

Why this is not true? What prevents me from reviving java-1.6.0-openjdk
or java-1.7.0-openjdk in Fedora and making it available in rawhide? If I
wanted could just follow standard process and bring it back any time.

>>> === Proposed rules ===
>>> 0. '''Main JDK maintainers are not never ever responsible for any
>>> legacy jdk.
>>> This must remain clear'''
>>
>> Package maintainers are responsible for their packages. If maintainer of
>> "main JDK" is also maintaining "legacy JDK" then (s)he should be
>> responsible for both of them. I don't see why any special rule should be
>> defined.
> 
> As I higlighted - we - main jdk team - are never ever going to do so.

Imagine that someone become comaintainer of "main JDK". This rule would
prevent him from maintaining (and "being responsible") for older JDK.
This limits people's freedom and that's why I am against that.

>>> 6. as it is generally not new package, the review process
>>> '''should''' be only
>>> formal - to know maintainer and to create cvs repo
>>>   1. this is quite important, otherwise the new maintainer can become
>>> really
>>> frustrated, and we are forcing the "dead" package over"orpahned" so
>>> the full
>>> review (especially in alignment with rule 5) really should not be
>>> forced.
>>>   2. on the contrary, rules agreed here '''must''' be checked.  (even
>>> the
>>> number 5)
>>
>> Currently all compat packages must complete full review before being
>> introduced. Why JDK should be treated specially? I think that with
>> complex system of virtual provides, alternatives and strict directory
>> layout it's necessary to fully review "legacy JDK" package to make sure
>> it doesn't conflict with primary JDK and that it is integrated with
>> Fedora as expected.
> 
> Well the jdk - as is now - will never pass regular review - it is
> handling config files and libraries and shared jars really differently -
> and have good purposes for it.

Package that doesn't pass review shouldn't be part of Fedora.

-- 
Mikolaj Izdebski
Software Engineer, Red Hat
IRC: mizdebsk