Re: [jakarta.ee-spec.committee] Compromise for approval of Jakarta EE 8

[Bill Shannon <bill.shannon@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Kevin Sutter wrote on 6/4/19 1:05 PM:

Hi Bill,
We're in a classic chicken-and-the-egg situation...  It's difficult to have any Compatible Implementation that uses the APIs that are being submitted for review.  We have this situation with every MicroProfile release.  We require a Compatible Implementation for the Release Review, but it doesn't have to be a final GA product.  It has to be an accessible open-source project that demonstrates the functionality defined by the Spec and API and it passes the defined TCK.  But, it doesn't have to be a final X.Y release.

At the JCP we required the implementation to be released as a "final" product soon after the spec was approved.  (It usually took hours to weeks after the approval to release the implementation.)  Allowing some slop between the spec approval and the implementation release solved the chicken-and-egg problem.

I guess we need to decide what we require for the JESP.  I was assuming it would be the same.  I don't think it would be appropriate to approve the spec with only a "day in the life" of an implementation that may never be recreated.  Perhaps a final release is not required, but it seems like it should at least be some sort of distinguished milestone release.  Personally I think a final release should be required, but it's a good discussion topic.

What is even more unique with this Jakarta EE 8 release is that we want to make a big splash with this initial release.  When we announce Jakarta EE 8, we want to also announce that we have several Compatible Implementations -- Eclipse Glassfish, OpenLiberty, and Wildfly (at least, maybe there are others).  So, how can we accomplish this when the Specs, APIs, and even the TCKs are still going through the final Reviews?

It's not our plan to hold up this release until other compatible implementations are available.  If you think we need to do that, you should bring that up at the Steering Committee, although that would clearly blow our schedule.

If other implementations can finish in the same time as the existing schedule, that would be great!  Clearly the TCKs have to be "frozen" at the start of the release review, so that gives other implementations some time to ensure that they pass the TCKs.  If they can show that they pass the frozen-but-not-yet-approved TCKs at the end of the review period, I think we should consider them compatible implementations as part of the release.  And of course if they pass the finalized TCKs shortly after the approval, we should add them to the list of compatible implementations.

If other implementations are intending to be compatible at the current release date, that would be helpful to know ASAP.  That might require additional resources to support usage of the Jakarta EE TCKs and we should plan accordingly.

We do have to remember that the TCK is testing functionality, not whether the proper license and/or javadocs have been updated.

We expect the Specification Committee to be checking that the submitted javadocs include the correct license, spec name, etc. as part of the specification approval process.

So, technically, once these CIs pass the TCK (with or without the updated APIs), then they should be ready for the Release Review and the eventual Announce.

Yes, other compatible implementations don't need to depend on these API jar files.

But, I do get your point about having to test these updated APIs before releasing them.  I thought that was part of the TCK testing that Dmitry and Ed were going over this morning?

Yes, it is.  Every changed artifact needs to be tested before release.  Every API jar file will be updated and released.  Some implementations might also be updated and released.

During our PMC call just prior to the Steering Committee call, Dmitry explained that the individual API TCKs would need to be executed to ensure they are compliant.  These individual tests would not be comprehensive though -- we should still do some testing that they work throughout the whole TCK bucket.

All of the existing EE4J implementations need to be tested with the new Jakarta EE TCKs since those are the implementations that we will include in the approval process as compatible implementations.

Maybe we need all of the Compliant Implementations to re-run the TCK with the proper APIs during the Review period?  Given that the individual API TCKs were run prior to the review, and the CIs would already passed the required TCKs (minus the API updates), maybe re-running the CIs with the updated APIs would be sufficient at this time?  Maybe this is the gist of your compromise?

Yes, we just need to do something to ensure that the updated API jar files still match the spec and no unexpected changes or errors have crept in.  Again, we're not expecting to include these updated API jar files in most of the Compatible Implementations at EE4J for Jakarta EE 8, and no other Compatible Implementation is required to use them (although they can if they want to).

>  We need to update all of the javadocs for all of the APIs to use the new
specification names and to use the Eclipse Foundation Specification License.

Since we're actively discussing how far-reaching the acronym usage limitation is, I'll leave the extent of the javadoc updates out of this discussion and just focus on the requirements of the Release Review and the Compatible Implementations.

Even ignoring the acronyms, most of the javadocs will include the name of their own spec (which is changing), and many will include references to JSRs (which need to be removed or replaced).  The javadoc updates may not be extensive, but they include at least the new license, and in most cases will include some other required changes.