Hi, Fabio,
On Mon, Nov 18, 2019 at 10:30 AM Fabio Valentini <decathorpe@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Hi everybody,
You're probably aware that the Stewardship SIG has been picking up
some (±230) Java packages to keep them from getting removed from
fedora, and to try to keep them maintained. Since the fraction of
out-of-date packages has fallen from 70% to 30% (with 0 FTBFS issues
left), I think we've done a pretty good job so far.
I'd like to make it clear first that the work of Stewardship SIG is highly appreciated. Thank you for doing it.
But, you might ask, wouldn't the Java SIG be well suited to that task?
I'm asking myself the same thing, but I feel like I've been shouting
into the void for months - according to the Wiki page for the SIG [0],
the Java SIG has 26 listed members, of which I only recognise 4-5 as
packagers who are still actively contributing to fedora. For a few
others, I've already gone through the Non-responsive Maintainer
process.
Both the page for the Java SIG [0] and Java in fedora [1] look like
they haven't been updated in years - they even list some things as
"wishlisted" or "in progress" which were packaged for fedora a while
ago, but have since been retired again, either due to getting
orphaned, or due to FTBFS issues — most of which were being caused by
a lack of maintenance since circa 2017, which is when most Java
packagers seem to have fallen into a black hole, as far as I can tell
(getting information by deciphering Hawking Radiation is hard, you
know).
So, I'm wondering - what's *actually* the state of the Java SIG? The
IRC channel is silent, the Mailing list is dead except 0-2 posts *PER
MONTH* (mostly from non-SIG members), and the Wiki pages are wildly
out of date.
Can we at least get the two Wiki pages get updated to the current state?
Does the Java ecosystem on fedora need more involvement from the community?
Or is it time for a "tabula rasa" and restart the SIG?
I really hope we can get something off the ground, soon - because I
and other members of the Stewardship SIG have been spending a lot of
hours each week on keeping this stuff working, but my patience and
energy are reaching their limits. I'd really like to slowly start
handing over Java packages to someone who's actually using them, and
is interested in keeping them maintained.
I agree with your point that Stewardship SIG supposed to be only a temporary owner of certain packages. The goal of the SIG is to step in if there is a critical unresolved issue in the current state, and then route the issue to the right owner.
> So, if you're an active member of the Java SIG, or a (proven)packager
> interested in Java packaging on fedora, please speak up - maybe we can
> get this ball rolling :)
But I'd like to reset the conversation here.
The point of Java SIG and I think the nature of your request to it is not to take the responsibility of packages Stewardship SIG inherited.
Rather we have a generic problem: how one can package and maintain Java stack and Java application in Fedora. Java SIG supposed to be the owner of this topic. It needs to provide the common place for Java developers (app maintainers as well as toolchain maintainers) to communicate to each other and come up with solutions to the common issues.
The way how exactly the issue should be resolved (with or without modules, with or without buildroot packages and so on) is for the Java SIG members to figure out.
Thus, I would suggest to frame the request differently. Instead of asking who can maintain certain non-modular Java packages, let's ask who can describe the path forward for Java-related packages in Fedora, and who is willing to work on it.
I see that Mikolaj has a vision how it supposed to work. And I think he spent quite some time designing the workflow which would fit this vision, thus it is worth to listen to it with an open mind.
@Mikolaj, can you document the setup for java toolchain somewhere other than a mailing list? Buildroot modules, defaults streams, what Java packager should and shouldn't use... Probably one of those outdated wiki pages can be updated for that.
This will create a starting point for this conversation and set the context, so that app maintainers can work constructively with it rather than fall into yet another generic modularity conversation.
PS, side note about Modularity: If I understand the current state of
things correctly, the plan is to make the "maven:3.5" and "ant:1.10"
modular packages be installable alongside non-modular Java packages.
They're currently shadowing non-modular packages (since they have
default streams), but I understand this is getting fixed. This means
that the non-modular Java packages (especially maven, ant, xmvn, their
dependencies, and other packages which are used for building Java RPM
packages in fedora) will need to be maintained as non-modular packages
indefinitely.
--
Aleksandra Fedorova
bookwar
Aleksandra Fedorova
bookwar
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