Hi all, I’m also +1 for that "move“. Atl. Jira has it strengths, yet I agree it poses barriers to (new) contributors, as adds in extra complexity for the workflow of bringing in contributions.
Given Richard’s experience with the actual migration steps and ASF’s support, I see no reasons why the project shouldn’t try Github as primary platform. I think, we could thus reach a much broader audience. @Richard: Do you think that should be done before a final 3.0.0 is out? Best Martin > Am 25.03.2026 um 10:04 schrieb Atita Arora <[email protected]>: > > Thanks for putting this together so clearly, Richard. > I'm in favor of the move and the migration path being well-established > makes this a low-risk change. > The GitHub Discussions idea for the user list is interesting too. Worth > trying! > > +1 from me. > Best, > Atita > > On Wed, Mar 25, 2026 at 9:16 AM Richard Zowalla <[email protected]> wrote: > >> >> Hi all, >> I'd like to start a discussion about migrating our issue tracker from Jira >> to GitHub Issues, as several other ASF projects have already done >> successfully (Maven, Storm, Arrow, Lucene, and others). >> The main benefits I see: >> Contributors no longer need to create a Jira account to file a bug or >> feature request, which alone can make a noticeable difference in >> participation. GitHub's "good first issue" labelling is widely used and >> well-known, making it easier to attract new contributors and widen our >> community. >> On top of that, enabling GitHub Discussions could replace our current user >> mailing list, which has been fairly quiet for a while. Mailing lists are >> showing their age as a communication channel, and many people today are >> simply more comfortable engaging in a web-based forum style. GitHub >> Discussions would meet users where they already are, potentially breathing >> new life into community interaction around OpenNLP. >> The migration path is well established: INFRA can migrate all existing and >> closed Jira issues automatically to GitHub, as has been done for Maven, >> Storm, Arrow, Lucene, and others, so we would not lose any history. >> Regarding ASF compliance: archiving requirements are fully covered, as >> everything can be mirrored to the appropriate mailing lists via .asf.yml >> One thing worth acknowledging: moving to GitHub Issues does mean leaving >> ASF-controlled infrastructure and depending on Microsoft. However, given >> that ASF is already planning to migrate Jira to Atlassian Cloud, we would >> be leaving ASF's own infra (for issue tracking) either way, so this concern >> seems largely moot. >> I'm not aware of any blockers, but I'd love to hear thoughts, concerns, or >> prior experiences and start a discussion on it. >> Gruß >> Richard >>
