[gentoo-java] Gentoo/Java staffing needs

[gentoo-java] Gentoo/Java staffing needs

[Joshua Nichols]

Hey folks,

As has been the case for some time, the Java team is still atrociously
understaffed. Below, I'll outline a few 'positions' I'd like see filled.
I'm using the term really loosely, and mean it more as in the sense of
'these are things I'd like people to be working on'. If current devs are
interested, that'd be great, but we're also willing to mentor some fresh
blood.


* Java generalists

We have tons of Java packages. It was around 400 or so last time I
checked. As one can imagine, this kind of number
generates a pretty constant stream of bugs and version bump requests.

So, basically I'm looking for some people to help out with general
maintence of our packages. I'd expect them to be familiar with Gentoo
and Java (surprise!). If they are not already, they will need to become
familiar with the ins and outs of how Java is handled on Gentoo.
Familiarity with ant, which is used for a large majority of our
packages, would be very useful.

* JBoss maintainer

JBoss is a pretty important app in the enterprise world of Java. It has
been pretty unmaintained for some time now, and could use some love.
Because of the nature of this beast, I would want someone that uses
JBoss on a daily basis, preferably in an enterprise setting, to be the
type of person to maintain this.

* Jetty maintainer

Jetty is a web container, like tomcat and resin. It also has been pretty
unmaintained in recent times. Preferably, the person who picks this
fella up uses jetty on a daily basis in an enterprise type setting.

* Maven maintainer

Currently, our package for maven is a binary package, and we don't
support using maven from an ebuild. Ideally, we would be able to package
it from source, and would support building packages with it. There
however, are quite a few barriers to this. I outline them in detail in
one of my blog posts, under 2a and 2b:

http://planet.gentoo.org/developers/nichoj/2006/05/04/java_ideas_for_summer_of_code

* Free Java Hackers

One of illustrious users has been working on working away at getting GCJ
usable as a JDK, in the sense that it can be to build our packages.  We
do have a handful of other free Java VMs in portage, like kaffe,
sablevm, jamvm, etc. If people were interested, I think it'd be great if
we could get our packages building using these other VMs.

* Eclipse / Netbeans maintainers

Eclipse and Netbeans are the primary IDEs for Java. Eclipse is well kept
for the moment, but the plugins haven't been. Netbeans needs a bit of
love though, as it hasn't been updated in awhile.


So, if one or more of these sounds intersting and like something you'd
want to do? For starters, you should take a gander over at our project
page, and checkout various documentation we have:
http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/java/

Other things you can do:

* Join our mailing list, gentoo-java. It is pretty low-traffic.
Information about joining lists is at:
http://www.gentoo.org/main/en/lists.xml

* Lurk in our IRC channel, #gentoo-java on irc.freenode.net. It's also
fairly low-traffic, so don't expect immediate responses.


Hope to hear from some peeps :-D
-- 
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[gentoo-java] Re: Gentoo/Java staffing needs

[Ted Kosan]

Joshua wrote:

> As has been the case for some time, the Java team is still atrociously
> understaffed. Below, I'll outline a few 'positions' I'd like see filled.
> I'm using the term really loosely, and mean it more as in the sense of
> 'these are things I'd like people to be working on'. If current devs are
> interested, that'd be great, but we're also willing to mentor some fresh
> blood.

Two of the difficulties that seem to be contributing to the Java team's
understaffing problem are:

1) A significant number of Java developers do not know very much about Linux
and of those who do, not many of them are familiar with Gentoo.

2) Of those Java developers who are aware of Gentoo and its solid support for
Java, many of them do not have enough Linux skills to successfully install it.


After thinking about the understaffing problem for a few months, I have come up
with an idea that may help solve these difficulties.

I am one of the community leaders on Sun's java.net site ( http://java.net )
and I have put together a "Java Distribution" LiveCD ( called JDOS,
https://jdos.dev.java.net ) which is based on Gentoo.  JDOS is ready for its
initial release and the last thing I am waiting on is for Sun's new
Linux-friendly JDK files to be added to the portage tree.

One advantage that the java.net site has is that thousands of Java developers
visit it each day to read blogs, articles and other news items.

As soon as it is released, my plan is to write some articles and blog entries
on JDOS ( and its Gentoo foundation ) for publication on java.net's front page.
 My hope is that a number of Java developers will find the CD to be useful and
then be interested in having their own Java software, or the latest version of
their favorite Java applications, included on the LiveCD.  

Since this will require that the software be placed in the portage tree, I am
hoping that some of these developers can be convinced to join the Gentoo Java
team and learn how to create and maintain packages.



>* Java generalists
>
>We have tons of Java packages. It was around 400 or so last time I
>checked. As one can imagine, this kind of number
>generates a pretty constant stream of bugs and version bump requests.
>
>So, basically I'm looking for some people to help out with 
>general maintence of our packages.

I will volunteer to be part of this group.  I would have done this a number of
months ago but I had my hands full learning python so that I could figure out
how to use Catalyst properly :-)

Thanks,

Ted Kosan
tkosan@dev.java.net
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Re: [gentoo-java] Gentoo/Java staffing needs

[Miroslav Šulc]

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Joshua Nichols napsal(a):
> Hey folks,
>
> As has been the case for some time, the Java team is still atrociously
> understaffed. Below, I'll outline a few 'positions' I'd like see filled.
> I'm using the term really loosely, and mean it more as in the sense of
> 'these are things I'd like people to be working on'. If current devs are
> interested, that'd be great, but we're also willing to mentor some fresh
> blood.
>
>
> * Java generalists
>
> We have tons of Java packages. It was around 400 or so last time I
> checked. As one can imagine, this kind of number
> generates a pretty constant stream of bugs and version bump requests.
>
> So, basically I'm looking for some people to help out with general
> maintence of our packages. I'd expect them to be familiar with Gentoo
> and Java (surprise!). If they are not already, they will need to become
> familiar with the ins and outs of how Java is handled on Gentoo.
> Familiarity with ant, which is used for a large majority of our
> packages, would be very useful.
>   
I think a could help with migration and version bumps, lets say a few
ebuilds a week, but at the beginning I would need a senior developer to
review my ebuilds to catch my bad style etc. I've already sent some
migrated ebuilds from java-experimental-overlay to Joshua a week ago but
I've received no feedback yet nor they appeared in the
migrated-java-experimental-overlay.

I would also appreciate more information on Java ebuilds development. I
don't remember I've seen somewhere slotting "howto" for Java ebuilds,
but I may miss something.
> ...
>
> Hope to hear from some peeps :-D
>   

Miroslav

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Re: [gentoo-java] Re: Gentoo/Java staffing needs

[Caster]

Ted Kosan wrote:
> I am one of the community leaders on Sun's java.net site ( http://java.net )
> and I have put together a "Java Distribution" LiveCD ( called JDOS,
> https://jdos.dev.java.net ) which is based on Gentoo.  JDOS is ready for its
> initial release and the last thing I am waiting on is for Sun's new
> Linux-friendly JDK files to be added to the portage tree.

It's already there :) sun-jdk-1.5.0.07-r1 is using the DLJ files.

> Since this will require that the software be placed in the portage tree, I am
> hoping that some of these developers can be convinced to join the Gentoo Java
> team and learn how to create and maintain packages.

You can also use an overlay to have stuff faster before it's in main
portage tree and as kind of ebuild playground for people willing to
contribute :)

Caster
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Re: [gentoo-java] Gentoo/Java staffing needs

[Wiktor Wandachowicz]

2006/7/26, Joshua Nichols <nichoj@gentoo.org>:
> we're also willing to mentor some fresh blood.
>
> * Java generalists
>
> We have tons of Java packages. It was around 400 or so last time
> I checked. As one can imagine, this kind of number generates
> a pretty constant stream of bugs and version bump requests.

Right. Several bugs/fixes/requests came from me too :)

> So, basically I'm looking for some people to help out with general
> maintence of our packages. I'd expect them to be familiar with Gentoo
> and Java (surprise!). If they are not already, they will need to become
> familiar with the ins and outs of how Java is handled on Gentoo.
> Familiarity with ant, which is used for a large majority of our
> packages, would be very useful.

Given the fact that I consider current Java handling in Gentoo the best
I've seen around (be that other Linux distros, Solaris and Windows)
I suppose I could help a little too.

I guess I could try to fix/revbump some ebuilds, like one or two
per weekend, for start. But here I have some important questions:

* What is the best way to get from bugs.gentoo.org a list of
  ebuilds that need to be fixed/revbumped?
  Could someone post a link with such a prepared query, maybe?

* When I have, say, fixed an ebuild, what should I do with it?

Regards,
Wiktor (SirYes)

-- 
Registered Linux user #390131 (http://counter.li.org)
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Re: [gentoo-java] Gentoo/Java staffing needs

[Miroslav Šulc]

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Wiktor Wandachowicz napsal(a):
> 2006/7/26, Joshua Nichols <nichoj@gentoo.org>:
> ...
>> So, basically I'm looking for some people to help out with general
>> maintence of our packages. I'd expect them to be familiar with Gentoo
>> and Java (surprise!). If they are not already, they will need to become
>> familiar with the ins and outs of how Java is handled on Gentoo.
>> Familiarity with ant, which is used for a large majority of our
>> packages, would be very useful.
>
> Given the fact that I consider current Java handling in Gentoo the best
> I've seen around (be that other Linux distros, Solaris and Windows)
> I suppose I could help a little too.
>
> I guess I could try to fix/revbump some ebuilds, like one or two
> per weekend, for start. But here I have some important questions:
>
> * What is the best way to get from bugs.gentoo.org a list of
>  ebuilds that need to be fixed/revbumped?
>  Could someone post a link with such a prepared query, maybe?
Do you mean this?
http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/java/bugs.xml
> * When I have, say, fixed an ebuild, what should I do with it?
I'm interested in this too. I've updated some ebuilds and was told to
send them to the person who has changed it last (it was Joshua who
changed them) so I did but nothing happened :-)
>
> Regards,
> Wiktor (SirYes)
Miroslav

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Re: [gentoo-java] Gentoo/Java staffing needs

[William L. Thomson Jr.]

On Fri, 2006-07-28 at 16:44 +0200, Miroslav Šulc wrote:
> Wiktor Wandachowicz napsal(a):
>
> > * When I have, say, fixed an ebuild, what should I do with it?
> I'm interested in this too. I've updated some ebuilds and was told to
> send them to the person who has changed it last (it was Joshua who
> changed them) so I did but nothing happened :-)

The best course of action is to make a patch consisting of the changes,
and filing a bug. Attaching the patch to the bug. If a bug is already
opened, attach the patch to the existing bug report.

-- 
Sincerely,
William L. Thomson Jr.
Obsidian-Studios, Inc.
http://www.obsidian-studios.com

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Re: [gentoo-java] Gentoo/Java staffing needs

[Miroslav Šulc]

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Travis Camechis napsal(a):
> I am a software engineer that works primarly in java.  I would like to
> get envolved more with the JAVA on gentoo.  My problem is my limited
> time and the time it takes to get up to speed with doing ebuilds and
> the learning the infrastructure.  Im not sure what is the best way to
> learn these things.
I have the same problem being overloaded, but Java ebuilds are pretty
simple (I mean library ebuilds I've seen but sure there are complicated
Java ebuilds that require more knowledge, such are JBoss etc.). You can
find some useful resources here:

http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/java/

At Wiki I use mainly these but other links may be interesting too:

http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/java/java-devel.xml
http://overlays.gentoo.org/proj/java/wiki/Migrating_packages
>
> TC
Miroslav

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Re: [gentoo-java] Gentoo/Java staffing needs

[Joshua Nichols]

Miroslav Šulc wrote:
> Do you mean this?
> http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/java/bugs.xml
>   
>> * When I have, say, fixed an ebuild, what should I do with it?
>>     
> I'm interested in this too. I've updated some ebuilds and was told to
> send them to the person who has changed it last (it was Joshua who
> changed them) so I did but nothing happened :-)
>   
It's been pretty hectic for me lately, so they kind of got buried. I'll
try to find some time to look at them over the weekend.

On a side note, it's probably better to send things like that to this
list. More eyes / exposure and all that.

-- 
Joshua Nichols
Gentoo/Java - Project Lead

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Re: [gentoo-java] Gentoo/Java staffing needs

[Miroslav Šulc]

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Joshua Nichols napsal(a):
> Miroslav Šulc wrote:
>   
>> ...
>> I'm interested in this too. I've updated some ebuilds and was told to
>> send them to the person who has changed it last (it was Joshua who
>> changed them) so I did but nothing happened :-)
>>   
>>     
> It's been pretty hectic for me lately, so they kind of got buried. I'll
> try to find some time to look at them over the weekend.
>
> On a side note, it's probably better to send things like that to this
> list. More eyes / exposure and all that.
>   
I thought that you are busy but I'm not sure whether I should submit
bugs on experimental java to bugzilla. Maybe I do not understand the
"experimental" word correctly. Does it mean a "lab" or "just before
moving to sync"?

I can place those ebuilds I sent you to bugzilla if you want me to,
that's not a problem. Anyway I would appreciate feedback on the ebuilds
because these are my first java ebuilds and I sure missed something.

Thank you.

Miroslav

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Re: [gentoo-java] Gentoo/Java staffing needs

[Joshua Nichols]

Miroslav Šulc wrote:
> I thought that you are busy but I'm not sure whether I should submit
> bugs on experimental java to bugzilla. Maybe I do not understand the
> "experimental" word correctly. Does it mean a "lab" or "just before
> moving to sync"?
>   
Both really. Although, maybe it would make sense to have separate
overlays for things that really are 'experimental' versus things that
are ready to go into the tree.
> I can place those ebuilds I sent you to bugzilla if you want me to,
> that's not a problem. Anyway I would appreciate feedback on the ebuilds
> because these are my first java ebuilds and I sure missed something.
>   
That certainly wouldn't hurt, putting them up on bugzilla.

-- 
Joshua Nichols
Gentoo/Java - Project Lead

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Re: [gentoo-java] Gentoo/Java staffing needs

[Caster]

Joshua Nichols wrote:
> Miroslav Šulc wrote:
>> I thought that you are busy but I'm not sure whether I should submit
>> bugs on experimental java to bugzilla. Maybe I do not understand the
>> "experimental" word correctly. Does it mean a "lab" or "just before
>> moving to sync"?
>>   
> Both really. Although, maybe it would make sense to have separate
> overlays for things that really are 'experimental' versus things that
> are ready to go into the tree.

I agree. And people willing to help but not having the time/etc to
become full gentoo devs could have commit access to the "more
experimental" overlay and from there devs could review the ebuilds and
if they are fine, move to the "ready/reviewed" overlay (or even main
tree) - I think it's how the infamous Sunrise overlay works :) I think
svn is nicer to work with than sending stuff to maillist or uploading to
bugzilla, then dev needs to put it to his overlay himself for review,
seems like unnecessary waste of time to me.

>> I can place those ebuilds I sent you to bugzilla if you want me to,
>> that's not a problem. Anyway I would appreciate feedback on the ebuilds
>> because these are my first java ebuilds and I sure missed something.
>>   
> That certainly wouldn't hurt, putting them up on bugzilla.
> 

Well, if they could be assigned to directly. Now it goes to bug
wranglers, and sometimes the reactions on java bugs aren't very warm, as
I can see on #gentoo-bugs :( Also, we often need to reassure Jakub that
the our bug report isn't invalid because of not following migration
guide etc... Maybe trac tickets could be better for making todo notes of
stuff so it's somehow organized and not forgotten. There was tickets
module in gentooexperimental.org Trac, but I can't see it on
overlays.g.o though...

Just my 2c
Caster
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Re: [gentoo-java] Gentoo/Java staffing needs

[Miroslav Šulc]

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Caster napsal(a):
> Joshua Nichols wrote:
>   
>> Miroslav Šulc wrote:
>>     
>>> I thought that you are busy but I'm not sure whether I should submit
>>> bugs on experimental java to bugzilla. Maybe I do not understand the
>>> "experimental" word correctly. Does it mean a "lab" or "just before
>>> moving to sync"?
>>>   
>>>       
>> Both really. Although, maybe it would make sense to have separate
>> overlays for things that really are 'experimental' versus things that
>> are ready to go into the tree.
>>     
> I agree. And people willing to help but not having the time/etc to
> become full gentoo devs could have commit access to the "more
> experimental" overlay and from there devs could review the ebuilds and
> if they are fine, move to the "ready/reviewed" overlay (or even main
> tree) - I think it's how the infamous Sunrise overlay works :) I think
> svn is nicer to work with than sending stuff to maillist or uploading to
> bugzilla, then dev needs to put it to his overlay himself for review,
> seems like unnecessary waste of time to me.
>   
I definitely agree. And if any waste could be reduced then more work can
be done.
> ...
> Just my 2c
> Caster
>   
Miroslav

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Re: [gentoo-java] Re: Gentoo/Java staffing needs

[Joshua Nichols]

Ted Kosan wrote:
> Joshua wrote:
>   
> Two of the difficulties that seem to be contributing to the Java team's
> understaffing problem are:
>
> 1) A significant number of Java developers do not know very much about Linux
> and of those who do, not many of them are familiar with Gentoo.
>
> 2) Of those Java developers who are aware of Gentoo and its solid support for
> Java, many of them do not have enough Linux skills to successfully install it.
>
>
>   
I totally agree. Usually, you don't get the right combination of Java
and Linux skills in folks that are interested in helping out.
> After thinking about the understaffing problem for a few months, I have come up
> with an idea that may help solve these difficulties.
>
> I am one of the community leaders on Sun's java.net site ( http://java.net )
> and I have put together a "Java Distribution" LiveCD ( called JDOS,
> https://jdos.dev.java.net ) which is based on Gentoo.  JDOS is ready for its
> initial release and the last thing I am waiting on is for Sun's new
> Linux-friendly JDK files to be added to the portage tree.
>
> One advantage that the java.net site has is that thousands of Java developers
> visit it each day to read blogs, articles and other news items.
>
> As soon as it is released, my plan is to write some articles and blog entries
> on JDOS ( and its Gentoo foundation ) for publication on java.net's front page.
>  My hope is that a number of Java developers will find the CD to be useful and
> then be interested in having their own Java software, or the latest version of
> their favorite Java applications, included on the LiveCD.  
>
>   
This is very cool! I wish I had heard about it earlier. One of the cool
things we had wanted to do, but never quite got to was a live cd showing
off our Java packages. In particular, it'd be nice to have a 'developer'
cd, loaded with netbeans, eclipse, tomcat, etc, etc.

I'll try to give it a whirl sometime this weekend.
> Since this will require that the software be placed in the portage tree, I am
> hoping that some of these developers can be convinced to join the Gentoo Java
> team and learn how to create and maintain packages.
>   
That would certainly be great. If there are needs you have in terms of
packages, or whatever, don't be afraid to drop a note to this list, or
file an appropriate bug.
>> * Java generalists
>>
>> We have tons of Java packages. It was around 400 or so last time I
>> checked. As one can imagine, this kind of number
>> generates a pretty constant stream of bugs and version bump requests.
>>
>> So, basically I'm looking for some people to help out with 
>> general maintence of our packages.
>>     
>
> I will volunteer to be part of this group.  I would have done this a number of
> months ago but I had my hands full learning python so that I could figure out
> how to use Catalyst properly :-)
>   
Very cool. I look forward to it :-D

-- 
Joshua Nichols
Gentoo/Java - Project Lead
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Re: [gentoo-java] Gentoo/Java staffing needs

[Joshua Nichols]

Miroslav Šulc wrote:
> I would also appreciate more information on Java ebuilds development. I
> don't remember I've seen somewhere slotting "howto" for Java ebuilds,
> but I may miss something.
>   
For Java specific information, check out the developer guide:
    http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/java/java-devel.xml

For general ebuild information:
    http://devmanual.gentoo.org/
    http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/devrel/handbook/handbook.xml

Hope that gives you somewhere to start.

-- 
Joshua Nichols
Gentoo/Java - Project Lead
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Re: [gentoo-java] Gentoo/Java staffing needs

[Miroslav Šulc]

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Joshua Nichols napsal(a):
> Miroslav Šulc wrote:
>   
>> I would also appreciate more information on Java ebuilds development. I
>> don't remember I've seen somewhere slotting "howto" for Java ebuilds,
>> but I may miss something.
>>   
>>     
> For Java specific information, check out the developer guide:
>     http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/java/java-devel.xml
>
> For general ebuild information:
>     http://devmanual.gentoo.org/
>     http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/devrel/handbook/handbook.xml
>
> Hope that gives you somewhere to start.
>   
I've went through the Java resources several times. Here is what I found
about slotting:

Slotting

"Libraries should be slotted according to the API they provide. If two
version have the same API, or if a new version is fully compatible with
the previous version, then they should be in the same SLOT."

I think it is not easy to determine whether an API changed a way that
would broke something. I think even knowing the package doesn't help the
dev. And documentation may not cover these changes. And using slot name
3 when major version changes to 4 but there is still full compatibility
with version 3.x might be confusing.

"Java libraries have a tendency to sometimes break API and ABI between
minor revisions, ie from 2.1.1 to 2.1.2. As a result, it is necessary to
slot early, and slot often."

I went through /usr/share to see current practice. I can see most of the
Java libraries I have installed are not slotted at all (probably
SLOT="0") and in a contrary jdom is slotted on ${PV} so it comes I have
jdom-1.0_beta9 and jdom-1.0 installed. I code in Java for some time but
I don't use most of the Java libraries I have installed directly so I
just know they exist until something brokes and needs attention.


For example, I can see batik is slotted as 1.5.1 and 1.6. I don't use
this one but it's not obvious to me why it is slotted to 1.5.1 and not
just 1.5. How can one say this slotting is correct. Maybe it would be
good to have "slot reason" information in the ebuild too to be able to
make time efficient corrections and updates of the ebuilds.

"For applications, it is mostly sufficient to keep only the latest
version. If the application comes in series, such as Eclipse, we want to
keep the latest revision in each series. Very old series may eventually
be dropped completely."

This is clear :-)



Could anyone please explain me how does the Java slotting work in
practice? Are there any helper rules?


Miroslav

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Re: [gentoo-java] Gentoo/Java staffing needs

[Joshua Nichols]

Miroslav Šulc wrote:
> I've went through the Java resources several times. Here is what I found
> about slotting:
>
> Slotting
>
> "Libraries should be slotted according to the API they provide. If two
> version have the same API, or if a new version is fully compatible with
> the previous version, then they should be in the same SLOT."
>
> I think it is not easy to determine whether an API changed a way that
> would broke something. I think even knowing the package doesn't help the
> dev. And documentation may not cover these changes. And using slot name
> 3 when major version changes to 4 but there is still full compatibility
> with version 3.x might be confusing.
>   
Yep, not easy at all. One way would involve trying to compile
everything, and make sure they don't break. Another is to use a tool
used by the gnu-classpath to test source compatibility... the name
escapes me at the moment though. One of our devs, betelgeuse, was
working on automated scripts to test releases using said tool.
> "Java libraries have a tendency to sometimes break API and ABI between
> minor revisions, ie from 2.1.1 to 2.1.2. As a result, it is necessary to
> slot early, and slot often."
>
> I went through /usr/share to see current practice. I can see most of the
> Java libraries I have installed are not slotted at all (probably
> SLOT="0") and in a contrary jdom is slotted on ${PV} so it comes I have
> jdom-1.0_beta9 and jdom-1.0 installed. I code in Java for some time but
> I don't use most of the Java libraries I have installed directly so I
> just know they exist until something brokes and needs attention.
>
>
> For example, I can see batik is slotted as 1.5.1 and 1.6. I don't use
> this one but it's not obvious to me why it is slotted to 1.5.1 and not
> just 1.5. How can one say this slotting is correct. Maybe it would be
> good to have "slot reason" information in the ebuild too to be able to
> make time efficient corrections and updates of the ebuilds.
>   
Emphasis is on tendency, and sometimes... the API/ABI doesn't always
break... so in those cases, it's fine not to use SLOTs. The reason for
slotting is almost always due to API breakage for library packages.
> "For applications, it is mostly sufficient to keep only the latest
> version. If the application comes in series, such as Eclipse, we want to
> keep the latest revision in each series. Very old series may eventually
> be dropped completely."
>
>   
Eclipse is probably a special case now that I think of it. We like to
package the milestones and RCs  as they are released, but they're not
always ready for primetime, or might not work with every plugin yet...
so in this case, it's good to have the brand spanking new release
installed next to the time tested one.

-- 
Joshua Nichols
Gentoo/Java - Project Lead
-- 
gentoo-java@gentoo.org mailing list

Re: [gentoo-java] Gentoo/Java staffing needs

[Ernst de Haan]

> everything, and make sure they don't break. Another is to use a tool
> used by the gnu-classpath to test source compatibility... the name

Japitools by Stuart Ballard. We also use it in our open-source project. See:
http://www.kaffe.org/~stuart/japi/

Ernst
-- 
gentoo-java@gentoo.org mailing list

Re: [gentoo-java] Gentoo/Java staffing needs

[Miroslav Šulc]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 2055 bytes --]

Joshua Nichols wrote:
> ...
> Eclipse is probably a special case now that I think of it. We like to
> package the milestones and RCs  as they are released, but they're not
> always ready for primetime, or might not work with every plugin yet...
> so in this case, it's good to have the brand spanking new release
> installed next to the time tested one.
>   
Thank you for the enlightening. What is your opinion about what Caster 
suggested (copy below)?

Joshua Nichols wrote:

> ...
> > Both really. Although, maybe it would make sense to have separate
> > overlays for things that really are 'experimental' versus things that
> > are ready to go into the tree.
>   

I agree. And people willing to help but not having the time/etc to
become full gentoo devs could have commit access to the "more
experimental" overlay and from there devs could review the ebuilds and
if they are fine, move to the "ready/reviewed" overlay (or even main
tree) - I think it's how the infamous Sunrise overlay works  :)  I think
svn is nicer to work with than sending stuff to maillist or uploading to
bugzilla, then dev needs to put it to his overlay himself for review,
seems like unnecessary waste of time to me.


>> >> I can place those ebuilds I sent you to bugzilla if you want me to,
>> >> that's not a problem. Anyway I would appreciate feedback on the ebuilds
>> >> because these are my first java ebuilds and I sure missed something.
>> >>   
>>     
> > That certainly wouldn't hurt, putting them up on bugzilla.
> > 
>   

Well, if they could be assigned to directly. Now it goes to bug
wranglers, and sometimes the reactions on java bugs aren't very warm, as
I can see on #gentoo-bugs  :(  Also, we often need to reassure Jakub that
the our bug report isn't invalid because of not following migration
guide etc... Maybe trac tickets could be better for making todo notes of
stuff so it's somehow organized and not forgotten. There was tickets
module in gentooexperimental.org Trac, but I can't see it on
overlays.g.o though...

Just my 2c
Caster



Miroslav

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