Attached please find the minutes of Governing Board's meeting
on 2011/4/21. They're also available on the web:
http://openjdk.java.net/groups/gb/minutes/2011-04-21
Respectfully submitted,
- Mark
OpenJDK Governing Board Minutes: 2011/4/21
==========================================
The OpenJDK Governing Board met via conference call on Thursday, 21 April
2011 at 15:00 UTC with the following agenda:
1. Initiating the JDK 8 Project
2. Review of OpenJDK Community Bylaws draft 8
All Board members were present: Jason Gartner, Doug Lea, Adam Messinger,
Mike Milinkovich, and Mark Reinhold.
The intent of these minutes is to capture the conversational flow of the
Board's discussion and also to record decisions. If you are interested
only in the latter then search for the word "AGREED" throughout the text.
1. Initiating the JDK 8 Project
-------------------------------
Mark proposed to initiate the JDK 8 Project immediately, using the
[existing interim guidelines for creating Projects][proj]. The
motivation for this is that work on the [JDK 7 Project][jdk7] is ramping
down in order to stabilize the code for release. Developers are starting
to work on features, enhancements, and fixes for JDK 8, and they need to
be able to push their changes into a shared code repository.
In an ideal world the [new Bylaws][bylaws] would already have been
ratified and in place, so that the JDK 8 Project could be initiated using
the rules defined therein. That is, unfortunately, not the case, but
that's not a good reason to hold up the start of work on JDK 8.
Doug objected to this proposal, observing that the activity of creating
and ratifying the Bylaws has already taken several more months than he'd
expected, due primarily to delays on Oracle's part. The Board should use
this as an opportunity to apply leverage, forcing Oracle to finish the
Bylaws and wait until they are ratified and in place before allowing the
JDK 8 Project to be created. Mike agreed with this view.
Adam asked Mark to estimate when the Bylaws could be in place. Mark
replied that his best guess was around the end of May: Two weeks for a
public review of the next draft, a week to make any required revisions,
and two weeks for the ratification vote. The biggest risk in this
timeline is the need for Oracle's legal department to review the next
Bylaws draft prior to their public release.
Adam then stated that if the JDK 8 Project is not created soon then
Oracle engineers will work on JDK 8 behind closed doors for five or six
weeks until the Bylaws are in place and the Project can be created. That
doesn't seem like the right course of action, given our goal of operating
transparently.
Doug replied that he's perfectly okay with that. It's more important to
finish the Bylaws than to start work on JDK 8 in the open, and if
embarrassing Oracle with this delay will help get the Bylaws finished
then so be it. Doug further speculated that there would be pressure from
engineers within Oracle to resolve this issue; Adam disagreed, noting
that working behind closed doors is actually a more comfortable mode of
operation for most Oracle engineers.
Jason agreed with Doug and Mike, saying that pushing forward on the open
governance model is the right thing even though this delay will cause
some consternation within IBM. Jason then offered an alternative
proposal: Rather than wait for the Bylaws to be ratified before
initiating the JDK 8 Project, instead just wait until the ratification
vote has begun.
Mike supported Jason's alternative proposal, noting that the point here
is to make tangible progress on getting the new governance model up and
running.
Adam asked if the JDK 8 Project could be initiated when the public review
of the next Bylaws draft begins. Mike asked if the draft will have been
reviewed by Oracle's legal department, which is the most unpredictable
risk in the overall effort; Adam replied that it would.
It was then unanimously
> AGREED: The JDK 8 Project will be initiated once the next draft of the
Bylaws have been reviewed and approved by the Board and by Oracle's
legal department, and posted for the next round of public review.
2. Review of OpenJDK Community Bylaws draft 8
---------------------------------------------
Mark asked if anyone had comments on draft 8 of the Bylaws, which he sent
to the Board for review last Friday, 15 April.
Doug and Mike had already indicated in e-mail that they had no comments.
Jason agreed that this draft is ready for public review, and said that
IBM's legal department had also reviewed and approved it.
The Board then thanked Mark for his work on the Bylaws and unanimously
> AGREED: Draft 8 of the Bylaws is approved by the Board.
Mark had one last question about the Bylaws: What should be the date of
the annual election for the At-Large members of the Board? The draft
says "the first day of April each year", but at this point the Bylaws
won't be in place until around the end of May. Holding elections at that
time of year, when people are starting to transition to their summer
schedules, could reduce overall participation.
Mike said that holding elections on the first of April was fine, given
that we've been operating as a Board for some time already.
It was then unanimously
> AGREED: The annual election of the At-Large members of the Board will
take place on the first day of April each year.
At this point the Board adjourned.
[proj]: http://openjdk.java.net/projects/
[jdk7]: http://openjdk.java.net/projects/jdk7/
[bylaws]: http://cr.openjdk.java.net/~mr/bylaws/
