Proposal for a JavaLibraryFreeze

[Dave Walker]

On 28/10/10 21:47, Thierry Carrez wrote:
> A few hours ago, during the UDS "Java Library Housekeeping" session, we
> discussed the damage that was done during the Lucid and Maverick cycles
> by introducing new versions of Java libraries late in the cycle.
>
> The problem is that our main Java stacks, and in particular Eucalyptus,
> can break quite late in the cycle when one of those libraries in synced
> or merged from Debian.
<SNIP>
> This would obviously be a soft freeze, so it doesn't prevent damage from
> being done, but we hope to make it a bad practice and reduce the
> problems we experienced over the last cycles.
>
> Comments ?
>
I entirely agree that *something* needs to be done.  Having been a 
victim of dependencies changing from under me, sometimes in a cascade, 
with my work on Eucalyptus last cycle - I wasted significant time trying 
to locate the issue, and also wasted valuable upstream time to help 
create a resolution.

Currently, we don't have a notion of RFC'ing when developers want to 
modify (mainly sync / merge), and heavily relies upon interested parties 
being fortunate enough to 'see' the bug, before some pain is inflicted.  
One example of this was Bug #614981 [0].  This system, in my mind, 
doesn't scale.

I would really like to hear James Page's thoughts on this subject, as he 
is undertaking some significant Java work this cycle in the server area.

Kind Regards,
Dave Walker

[0] https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/614981