Governing Board Minutes: 2011/9/22

The OpenJDK Governing Board met via conference call on Thursday, 22 November 2011 at 15:00 UTC with the following agenda:

  1. Census and Bylaws update
  2. JavaOne plans
  3. Infrastructure update

Four Board members were present: Doug Lea, Adam Messinger, Mike Milinkovich, and Mark Reinhold.

Two Observers were present: John Duimovich and Georges Saab.

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. Census and Bylaws update

Mark referred everyone to a draft pair of “howto” pages for Groups and Projects, written by Iris Clark, which he’d previously sent to Board members for review. He described these pages as an operating manual for the Bylaws, which deliberately do not define the mechanics of OpenJDK nominations and proposals. He indicated that he’d already given Iris some comments for further streamlining and asked the Board to review the content ahead of publication. Doug said that he’d breezed through the documentation and was generally pleased with the form, though it did occasionally appear redundant. Mike asserted that he too had made a quick pass through the documents and wanted the opportunity to review them in more depth. Both Mike and Doug agreed to provide further comments by Monday. John suggested that the document strive to provide additional criteria for the definition of a Group. Doug added that he’d like to know when a particular section applied and noted that some of this information had already been given. Mike observed that, as currently structured, voting appears to be a candidate for automation.

Digression: Doug expressed some concerns around when a JEP should be filed and how it would proceed through the system. He was especially concerned about having a feasibility discussion before any process overhead was in place. Mark speculated that some of the oddness being observed was the result of bootstrapping. He noted that some JDK 8 pre-planning had already taken place before the JEP process adopted. Georges remarked that some discussions regarding funding may occur behind closed doors, but the final outcome should always be public. Doug continued to express concerns about the JEP process. Mark reiterated that the intent of the process is to increase visibility, not to be a bottleneck for every new idea.

Moving back to the draft “howto” pages, Mark thanked the Board for their comments and committed to send another draft the next day. Mike and Doug said that they’d review it and provide immediate feedback if they detected any showstoppers.

At this point Mike dropped from the call.

AGREED: If showstoppers aren’t identified in the revised “howto” pages, they may be published without further review.

2. JavaOne Plans

Mark noted that no specific JavaOne activities related to the Governing Board were planned, although OpenJDK does have visibility in various talks and BoFs. John and Mark provided an ad-hoc list of some of those sessions. Mark confirmed that OpenJDK would be mentioned in the Technical and Strategy Keynotes. There was general discussion about whether the Governing Board should meet face-to-face during JavaOne, particularly since the next scheduled meeting would fall during the conference. The final decision was that there would be little bandwidth for a formal meeting, but an informal gathering might be planned.

Doug asked whether the announcement that the Bylaws were in place would be part of a JavaOne keynote. Mark said he expected the announcement to go out prior to the conference.

3. Infrastructure update

Georges gave a quick update on the bug system. There’d been a quite a bit of activity in resourcing for Oracle staff, external consultants, and hardware. Additionally the mandatory Oracle-internal security review process had started. Communication of the JIRA choice is queued up behind getting the Bylaws in place. Doug volunteered to be part of the Pilot. Georges replied that it would be open for the entire community. Adam asked whether the current activity was on track with the schedule presented at the last Governing Board meeting. Georges asserted that neither the length of the Security Review or the announcement of the JIRA choice were blocking other work, so things were on schedule.

At this point the Board adjourned.