OpenJDK Governing Board Minutes: 2015/1/15

The OpenJDK Governing Board met via conference call on Thursday, 15 January 2015 at 16:00 UTC with the following agenda:

  1. Approval of minutes
  2. Meeting frequency
  3. FOSDEM 2015
  4. Vulnerability Group update
  5. OpenJDK Scorecard, 2014 edition
  6. Any other business

All five Board members were present: Georges Saab, John Duimovich, Andrew Haley, Doug Lea, 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. Approval of minutes

Georges began the meeting by asking whether anybody had comments about the minutes from the last meeting. Doug indicated that they matched his general recollections. Georges observed that those present constituted a quorum and asked to approve the minutes.

AGREED: Minutes approved.

2. Meeting frequency

Georges recounted Mike Milinkovich's e-mail observing that the Governing Board was not meeting the Bylaws requirement to meet once a quarter. Doug Lea noted that there were two ways to interpret the lack of meetings: Either things have been working well, or the Board members have been too busy to meet. Andrew stated that satisfaction in the OpenJDK Community was not universal and he is preparing a FOSDEM talk based on a series of interviews with OpenJDK Developers. His summary was that what people wanted to change tend to be things that are difficult for the Board to alter. Georges thought that there were issues that could be discussed. Andrew concurred, saying that sometimes there were items he'd like to talk about but he didn't feel that by themselves they were a compelling justification to have a meeting. Andrew floated the idea of scheduling quarterly mandatory meetings. Mark suggested that the mandatory meetings be scheduled at the beginning of every quarter. After a brief discussion to determine whether additional meetings should be regularly scheduled, Georges summarized saying that the Board will designate quarterly mandatory meetings near the beginning of every quarter. Bi-weekly meeting requests for agenda items will continue to provide the opportunity to discuss pressing issues.

3. FOSDEM 2015

FOSDEM 2015 is approaching. Georges told everybody that the Governing Board would host its usual Meet the Governing Board Q&A session on Sunday. Mark, Andrew, and Georges will attend in person. Doug and John said that they'd attempt to attend the session via Skype.

4. Vulnerability Group update

Georges reported that based on feedback, Oracle continues to work on getting the Vulnerability Group in place. He thinks that a document describing the Group, including general operation and expectations with respect to confidentiality and communication, is close to completion. Once a draft is available, it will be circulated to the Board. Andrew observing that the people who do this work already have established channels to communicate. Goerges agreed, saying that there is no framework for everybody to work together; right now, the communication is only point-to-point. John emphasized that the most important aspect is timely disclosure of vulnerabilities so they can be resolved simultaneously across all platforms/releases without undue delay.

When asked about visibility, Mark replied that the Group is meant to be visible, but that most of its communication will be confidential. Georges added that confidentiality is needed to ensure that there isn't an inadvertent disclosure of a vulnerability.

5. OpenJDK Scorecard, 2014 Edition

Georges introduced this topic by summarizing the Scorecard's goals and history. It's an annual survey with Community and Project components. The results of the feedback provided by the Community serve as the Governing Board's annual report. The questions are stable, so that the answers can be compared across multiple years. Numerous free-form text areas allow for additional feedback if the questions are imperfect.

Andrew observed that the current Scorecard does not reflect all the known pain points and recommended that more questions be added. He proposed asking FOSDEM attendees for feedback. Georges thought that the feedback should not be limited to FOSDEM attendees and advised adding a question requesting feedback on the Scorecard. After further discussion, the Board decided to solicit feedback on the Scorecard's form and content at FOSDEM. They will additionally request a question explicitly asking for feedback on the survey.

6. Any other business

Doug asked about status of the replacement for the CCC. Georges stated that he anticipated making progress on that over the next year. He noted that the past few years have focused on launching the new bug system and the JEP Process. Doug acknowledged that those systems were more important at the time but he still wishes to see progress on the CCC.

Andrew requested an alternate mechanism for meeting minute approval. Mark advanced the idea of using e-mail to circulate and approve the minutes. The Board generally agreed. Georges expected the current meeting's minutes to be posted by the end of the month.

Doug wanted to know if there were any thoughts on ways to promote progress guarantees. Both he and Andrew noticed that people become unhappy due to lack of progress on submissions, e.g., no or slow responses to requests for reviews or feedback. Georges assured them that this is a problem for everybody, not just those outside of Oracle. Mark said that he'd be reluctant to define a formal process and encouraged appeal to the appropriate Project Lead. Georges suggested that whenever possible, people should contact the critical person ahead of time so that expectations could be set. His general philosophy is that the Board should support the community rather than dictate to it.

At this point the Board adjourned.