Hi. The purpose of this email is to build consensus of what the term "executable" means in the context of Apache NetBeans project.
There has been a discussion on [legal mailing list]( https://lists.apache.org/thread.html/r0482d10f784f26f72b836f8480a13c7876ef8499f1f285166b1cf241%40%3Clegal-discuss.apache.org%3E) and it turns out that understanding the meaning of term "executable" is quite important. In order to [Avoid Unnecessary Discussion & Stating Lazy Consensus](http://community.apache.org/committers/lazyConsensus.html) I am calling a lazy consensus vote. I am convinced such a lazy vote has to happen here, at the Apache NetBeans project, as only the Apache NetBeans PMC can decide what forms "executable" in our project and what does not. Matthias offered following classification of various Java artifacts on the legal list: 1. A jlinked image. This is a directory structure consisting of the required modules of the JDK and all other required modules. Distribution would be done as a ZIP or packed as an installer. 2. A fat jar - with all dependencies folded into one JAR 3. A directory structure with several files (jars and other resources). This directory would be packed as a ZIP and distributed. 4. An installer image, that contains the directory structure described before, but makes the distributable executable and helps the user installing the application 5. A packaging of several libraries into a containing binary. NBMs, WARs and OSGI jars are samples for this, in all formats the outer container holds/can hold other libraries. 6. Individual library jars 7. In the future AOT compiled binaries (currently graalvm native image, in the future maybe integrated into the JDK) For Matthias 1, 2, 3, 4 and 7 are executables. I fully support his opinion and I want this to become the official definition of "executable" for the Apache NetBeans project. Let's give the usual 72h for stating objections. Should nobody object, then following artifacts of [NetBeans 12.0]( https://netbeans.apache.org/download/nb120/nb120.html) are going to be treated as executables: Binaries: * netbeans-12.0-bin.zip (SHA-512, PGP ASC) Installers: * Apache-NetBeans-12.0-bin-windows-x64.exe (SHA-512, PGP ASC) * Apache-NetBeans-12.0-bin-linux-x64.sh (SHA-512, PGP ASC) * Apache-NetBeans-12.0-bin-macosx.dmg (SHA-512, PGP ASC) Other artifacts are *not* executables, namely: * Source: netbeans-12.0-source.zip (SHA-512, PGP ASC) * Javadoc for this release is available at https://bits.netbeans.org/12.0/javadoc * Bits uploaded to Maven central for release 12.0 * NBMs on our update center Shall the lazy vote end with a consent, then Apache NetBeans project will use here-in proposed classification for artifacts of release 12.0 as well as future releases, unless redefinition of the term "executable" gets (lazy) voted again on this mailing list. Thanks Matthias for providing the classification. Thanks everybody in advance for your support, lazy consent or even disagreement. -jt
