[cross-project-issues-dev] [WARNING] SimRel Headed Off the Tracks

[Ed Merks <ed.merks@xxxxxxxxx>]

I'm growing increasing concerned about where the Simultaneous Release train is heading:

• Though not announced on this mailing list, Markus Knauer has stepped down from his role in building, managing, and maintaining the EPP Packages, asking someone to step forward to take on his role, but there are no takers:
     https://www.eclipse.org/lists/epp-dev/msg05658.html
  
• Also not announced on this mailing list, Wayne Beaton has asked someone to step forward to take on his responsibilities for managing project participation, but there are no takers:
     https://www.eclipse.org/lists/eclipse.org-planning-council/msg03268.html
  
• The Planning Council itself has been dissolved as part of the new bylaws.  So what is its new role, or what replaces it?
• Participating projects do not consistently monitor this mailing list, so the communication channels are broken.
  
• Participating projects do not consistently monitor the quality of their contributions, so quality all-too-easily degrades.
  
• Apparently no one is actually responsible for Cross-Projects bugs:
     https://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/buglist.cgi?bug_status=UNCONFIRMED&bug_status=NEW&bug_status=ASSIGNED&bug_status=REOPENED&component=Cross-Project&list_id=19171554&query_format=advanced
  
• Core projects with many dependencies are starving for resource, e.g., UML2 has simply been unable to produce a new build just to pick up the corrected SUA 2.0 license text.
• Unfortunately most of you who even bother to read this email will select choice 3 at the very end of it.
  

As your elected Committer Representative, I have raised these concerns with the Eclipse Board of Directors:

  https://www.eclipse.org/org/foundation/boardminutes/2019_12_18_Minutes.pdf

But little has evolved from that to date.

I have been personally helping out everywhere I am able and I would like to help out further, e.g., with EPP, project participation, and distributing Java runtimes.  Unfortunately all my work is unfunded so I too am considering whether I'll be forced to step back from many if not most of my roles, including the participation of EMF and Oomph in the Simultaneous Release process.

How much workload is it to manage all the necessary work involved in producing the release train?  That's unclear at this point, but what's all too clear is that even seemingly simple things like getting the license text correct and providing only signed content has proven to be an exercise in herding cats.  It's simply a huge challenge just to get each cat's awareness.  The latest 2020-03 M1 has introduced yet another SUA 2.0 variant and has unsigned content:

  https://download.eclipse.org/oomph/archive/reports/download.eclipse.org/releases/2020-03/http___download.eclipse.org_releases_2020-03_202001171000.html

And even when we get all these things correct, hidden problems quietly hammer the download server almost to death making for a bad installation/update experience:

  https://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=558462

In addition, it seems that the following problem might well happen yet again for the next release:

  https://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=548497

Compound all these difficult issues with a challenging migration to JIRO leaves me shaking my head.  I am wondering how many weeks of effort I personally will need to invest in order to migrate (re-implement) my existing jobs to what feels to me like crippled infrastructure.   Many projects will be faced with this same task and my general migration concerns remain open:

https://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=558735#c1
https://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=558743#c3

Poor communication, continued complacency, and lack of cohesive leadership/management seems to be heading the train off the track.  It seems to me each of us has three choices:

1. Step forward and volunteer to do some or all this necessary work yourself.
2. Speak to your Board representative(s) about cohesive management of this process.  Even if you don't work for a Strategic Developer member, there are six elected Board members who represent you and/or your organization:
      https://www.eclipse.org/org/foundation/directors.php
3. Do nothing based on the hope that the commons will function unattended.
   

Regards,
Ed