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Eclipse/PMC/Minutes 2016

< Eclipse‎ | PMC

Current Minutes

2016 Minutes

Dec 20, 2016 - Dani, Lars, Alex, Martin, Sergey

  • Dani: bug 499768 Oxygen Plan Update - Ubuntu 14.04 removed as a reference platform. CQ deadline added.
  • Dani: SWTBot Status
    • Worked well until Eclipse.org HIPPs were updated - now, with icewm there are focus issues, causing random recognition errors. There is bug 506995 open to provide a better alternative.
    • CDT has been affected as per bug 509248 - Dani also in contact with egit
    • Until then, we have to wait to look into SWTBot
  • Sergey: Neon.2 - GA tomorrow, branch is open already
  • Alex: Webkit 2 Update - Javascript integration is working; plugins running out-of-process is a huge benefit
    • BrowserFunctions not working yet (callbacks like "onClick" in Browser Widgets) - OK to still make Webkit2 the default ?
    • Should test Javadoc hovers; Help system navigation to Javadoc; Intro pages; expect to be done by M6, probably even M5
    • Martin doesn't want to block downstream adopters; enable fallback by environment variable and announce on cross-project
    • Alex will look at enabling at least onClick(), that's perhaps the 80% case, and do some more testing before switching
  • Dani: Eclipse.org Infrastructure Updates
    • bug 499399 being discussed on the board level now; especially VNC on the HIPPs, and bug 508658 repo.eclipse.org
    • VNC may be non-trivial to get fixed since SLES is almost entirely targeting back-end services
    • Would need a reasonably recent UI stack - anything like CentOS, Fedora, Mandriva
    • Goal would be having the test "close to what end users use"
    • Enterprise users tend to use "older" distributions (CentOS, Ubuntu LTS)
      • Statistics like https://www.linuxcounter.net/statistics/distributions might be misleading since enterprise users typically don't count there
      • On the other hand, enterprise customers typically also don't use the very latest Eclipse; and have their own support channels to report issues. So for active development, newer distros may be desirable.
  • Will cancel the Dec.27 and Jan.3 PMC calls

Dec 13, 2016 - McQ, Lars, Alex, Martin, Dani, Sergey

  • McQ: Rebuild for M4 due to 3 bugs, e.g. bug 508717 - Could testing be improved ?
    • Probably no 1:1 relation, but need a modern story for getting confidence in what we provide to the Community. A massive 7-hours API testing as done today doesn't hurt but isn't the solution
      • Lars: Test Suite is currently inactive for Quick Access - activation is on the roadmap
      • Would like some end-to-end scenario testing from the UI
    • Platform UI would like to start using SWTbot - most lightweight - at least some initial tests as examples
      • AI Dani talk to Mickael to understand what was blocking from adding it
    • UI tests are good for stable things, problematic for work-in-progress UIs
    • GUIdancer / Jubula looked very impressive - but seems to require a database, so hard to run locally
    • Martin: Reach out to projects on top of the Platform and ask them run on an I-build, at least occasionally?
      • Sergey thinks that we need to run tests ourselves.
      • Alex: Linuxtools could easily run tests against I-Builds; Heavy usage of SWTbot in place but it's unreliable - tests are very fragile, even smallest changes break the tests easily, tests were rewritten very often, making this quite expensive
      • Would only verify SuSE 12 if running on HIPP, but that doesn't tell much about other Platforms
    • McQ would like a "sanity-level check" on commits, to get some level of confidence on the builds ... a quick test which actually checks how people are using Eclipse today
    • Alex thinks that the current test suites are not in a good shape: many tests fail when run locally, even though good on Foundation hardware - cleaning this up is a lot of effort
    • McQ: Interested in the "top 10 ways of working with Eclipse" - could we test the top 10 scenarios ? Can we even find them ... and make those small "top 10" set stable so it can run anywhere ?
  • Lars: Push Maven Artifacts to Central
    • What should be the group ID ?
      • Dani thinks we cannot use org.eclipse (too generic) - maybe o.e.platform / o.e.jdt / o.e.pde (Q: Also split out o.e.swt / o.e.ui ?)
      • Martin wouldn't split out o.e.ui -- would prefer more grouped together in Platform
      • AGREEMENT to group by project name: o.e.platform / o.e.jdt / o.e.pde
    • Maven has only 3-part-versions : what to do with the qualifier ?
      • Alex: Sometime we don't bump the version for Beta releases - cannot override
        • Dani: releasing with a new qualifier but without a new version is a bug and should be found by reports and fixed
      • Dani: Using n.n.n-BUILDID is perhaps an issue since it's not treated as a release any more (but a snapshot)
      • AGREEMENT to use 3-part versions.
      • AGREEMENT to Stefan's proposal only releasing Neon.2 for now.
      • AI Dani respond to Stefan.

Dec 6, 2016 - Dani, Alex, Martin

  • McQ talked to Tom Watson about Equinox moving to Platform - Tom wants to discuss with the RT PMC
  • Alex: Update on Wayland
    • Fedora 25 shipping with Wayland by default
    • Wayland back-end for SWT is a patch in progress, some events not delivered, others incorrectly
    • Hoping to be in good shape by M5.
    • Until then, Gnome can be started on X11 with additional packages installed.
    • If Wayland is needed, the XWayland compatibility layer does work although slow (some drawing can be seen)
    • Some rewrite in the Launcher will be needed due to the security model - each window is isolated
  • Dani: How we test milestones - people putting in features sometimes don't seem to participate in the milestone week
    • McQ: Agrees that a good deal of manual testing is needed to cover flows that developers actually use
    • Alex: If milestone week overlaps with other duties (outside Platform) those other duties often take precedence
    • Test automation doesn't help for new features that add UI
    • Sergey distributes I-Builds so regressions are often found early - but there's no firm data on quality. Alex also distributes / uses I-Builds.
    • McQ thinks that some confidence in quality is needed, before I-builds are given out
    • Dani: Dogfooding helps a lot more than test plans.
    • To be discussed next week when there are more people on the call
  • 4.6.2 looking good; M4 test pass today for releasing on Friday
  • Oxygen plan hasn't seen comments, so will only put Java 9 updates in there

Nov 29, 2016 - Dani, McQ, Sergey, Alex, Lars, Martin

  • Sergey: Understaffed Projects Announcement - should it be sent to a wider audience?
  • Martin: Is it clear enough what contributors could do if they feel not being heard?
    • There is a forum and developer mailing lists, so for the Eclipse project we are probably good
    • Dani: The README.txt on top of the repo looks like a very good place for such kind of information
    • AI Martin review a couple READMEs and then make suggestions on the eclipse-pmc mailing list
  • Dani: RC4 - no build currently planned will push RC3. There's also Oxygen M4 next week.
    • Need to move out some planned bugzilla's targeted M4 (platform.ui: Lars to help, core: Sergey)
    • JDT UI is tight since Noopur is on vacation and Markus is very busy with Java 9 and HiDPI work
  • New process in place for the IP Log, IP log for Neon Update 2 (4.6.2) got approved today; Review is scheduled and ends on Dec.21
  • JDT Language Server: Still some blockers on the IP Work (hackathon contributions)
  • AI All Plan Update for Oxygen M4 bug 499768; Dani will update the Java 9 info
  • Lars: Approvals for Equinox
    • RT PMC don't have meetings or a process in place for approvals
    • They think that the Eclipse PMC is in a better position to approve Equinox
    • But why is Equinox on the RT PMC after all, does that still make sense? After all builds are done by Eclipse.
    • AI Dani discuss with Tom

Nov 22, 2016 - Dani, Martin, Sergey, Alex, McQ (Regrets: Lars - travelling)

  • McQ: Simplify adding committers to understaffed projects
    • AI Sergey final Polish on Lars' proposal + suggestions as discussed
  • Martin: bug 498116 download servers are hosed every Tuesday
    • PMC agrees to trying a fix for Neon.2 - this kind of issues is important (Android also ran into this kind of issue 2 years ago)
    • Dani: we can encourage them to fix it, but EPP and Equinox are not governed by our PMC
  • Dani: Neon.3 Planning
  • Dani: FEEP Discussions on the eclipse.org-feep-stakeholders mailing list
    • Voting will be more open this time
  • Dani: IP Log for Neon.2 - Endgame looking good, no planned fixes known at this time, but if there's a fix for bug 498116, we will consume it

Nov 15, 2016 - Dani, Sergey, Alex, Martin, Lars, McQ

  • Dani: Neon.2 Release Review went out, IP Log will come early Dec.
  • Dani: RC2 build tomorrow + test pass on Wed - last build before PMC approval is required
  • Dani: Bugzilla 4.6.3 milestone created - currently too many bugs targeted 4.6.2, suggest moving out except if there's a patch attached
  • Alex: Lucene - Using Lucene 6 for Platform.UI Indexing, prebuilt indexes of doc bundles need updating
    • Prebuilt indexes of older versions will not be used, the impact is just a slowdown on first startup of help
    • Old-version prebuilt indexes will trigger an entry in the errorlog, so projects will know
    • Q: How much should we push for having a single Lucene in the Release Train? (In Mars we had two)
      • Problem: Moving to Lucene 6 is real porting effort, and it is not possible to be backward compatible
      • EGit or XText, who want to support multiple Eclipse versions, may be allowed to bind against other Lucene by exception; but Planning Council message should be to favor the latest by default
    • Martin: Help Search Result Quality -- Was often critisized due to bad analyzers -- has it improved ?
      • Alex: Lucene 6 has apparently improved things, but team has not explicitly tested these cases
  • All: Understaffed Projects Discussion
    • Dani: Would like to send the message in a positive way: As a tool for interested parties to gain access to the code, and a tool for understaffed projects to bring in committers
    • Alex: Would like to send the message, that Eclipse is open to contributions
      • McQ: Yes, but not at the cost of making existing committers feel bad
      • Lars to draft a new note (next week)
  • Lars: Mylyn Notification API
    • Still on Dani's list of items

Nov 8, 2016 - McQ, Dani, Sergey, Lars, Dani, Alex

  • Dani: Update on N-Builds
    • Releng team will drop N-builds - will also reduce work on the Releng team
    • Retention policies will need to be updated on I-Builds (keep weekly I-Builds)
    • Provide a Hudson job which can mark an I-Build as unstable in case it isn't good
  • Dani: Neon.2
    • Feature Freeze today - Release Review just listing the N&N
    • There was some new API, but it was backported mostly for bug fixes ... nothing relevant for the N&N
    • Agreement that release reviews should be minimal effort - there was never community feedback on the reviews.
  • Lars: Code Reviews on Understaffed Projects
    • Make it easier for known, good people to get access to the code base for reviewing patches
    • We'd still need to know the people - don't offer commit rights to random people
    • Refactorings: Valuable if done by committers, but reviewing patches that are produced by refactorings is too hard
    • Making someone a committer is preferred if there is some commitment to doing work moving forward
    • Sergey: There's too many unreviewed patches against Platform in some areas - we need more committers.
    • Proposal: Offer a shortcut for committers on one component who express interest in another component.
      • Criteria: Provided contributions in the past, and shows interest moving forward.
      • Don't offer commit rights just for one contribution.
      • Consider merging components if a component has become so small that it's unnecessarily hard to contribute
        • On a case by case basis, only if we think that merging components would solve more problems than creating new ones.
    • Dani: Who makes the decision on shortcuts - existing committers, or PMC ?
      • In most cases, committers should have the say - but PMC may interfere if a project looks dysfunctional.
      • AI Alex will write up proposed statement

Nov 1, 2016 - McQ, Sergey, Lars, Dani, Alex

We agreed on the following changes:

  • Create maintenance branch immediately after RC1 instead of after the release. Use the maintenance branch to produce the upcoming release.
  • Eliminate all code freezes on the main branch for RC releases, except for 1-2 days after RC1 before the maintenance branch is created. Freezes to allow test for milestone builds will still be applied (milestone freezes).
  • We decided that we will only have ‘I’-like builds, using always signing.
  • We decided to revisit the decision to always ship from master, but that's a longer discussion and won't happen soon.

Oct 18, 2016 - McQ, Sergey, Martin, Dani, Alex

  • Dani: PMC Approval for Sergey co-lead on Resources (Done)
  • Alex: Lucene Update
    • Looking at updating to 6.x in Oxygen - CQs ongoing for Orbit - hoping to make M4
    • Others like Mylyn, Pydev, ... use Lucene 5.x at this time; others consume the Platform
    • There is some potential breaking things but should be fine since multiple Lucene's in parallel can work.
    • If an old pre-built help index can not be read, a new one is generated (Performance hit on the first run)
    • Dani: No issue, will also update Jetty in M4
  • Dani: Would like to open eclipse.jdt repository and corresponding sub-project to all JDT committers (currently only used for the JDT feature)
    • The project is almost dead with only 2 active committers, since new JDT leads were not voted in
    • Changes to feature will be rare, and Dani agrees to review
    • Allows to put the Oomph setup file into a shared place where all JDT committers have access
    • PROPOSAL AGREED by all.
  • EclipseCon Europe next week - Dani, Lars and Alex will be there - will cancel next week's meeting

Oct 11, 2016 - McQ, Dani, Lars, Alex, Sergey

  • Dani: Neon Update 2 Endgame Plan sent - thanks for the feedback
  • Sergey: We should talk about our release process.
    • McQ asked Sergey to start the discussion via e-mail
  • McQ: What do you think about Devoxx and Eclipse Converge

Oct 4, 2016 - McQ, Dani, Martin, Lars, Alex, Sergey

  • Dani: Neon Update 2 Endgame Plan - working on it
  • Dani: Release Review
    • In the past, features were not announced - now for 4.6.2, features + release review must be in by RC1
    • Will do the minimum necessary / required by EMO, for Update Releases.
  • Lars: p2 merge into Equinox status -
  • Sergey: Logistics of dealing with Service Releases
    • Managing version increments is very fragile and error-prone
      • Discussion already happened, see bug 499164 -- we'll not increment minor versions on backports even if API is added
      • AI Dani send a note out to eclipse-dev again
    • New & Noteworthy / Features for Update Releases:
      • If there's new features, there must be a New&Noteworthy for users (everyone agrees)
      • What about doing two feature releases per year with one service release each ?
        • Dani: Not having features in "some" releases would defeat what the Community wanted
        • Alex thinks that allowing features every 6 months would calm down most demand for new features
        • PMC Review of feature backports worked fine so far
        • RESOLUTION Will not change the process before having it settle a bit
          • McQ would love to see a single development stream all the time ...
      • Would the Generic Editor be acceptable in a release before June 2017 ?
        • Tentatively yes, it's a separate bundle not affecting other code, it matters to the Community, so why not...
        • Martin: OK, but what about newly introduced API ... would it be declared "provisional" initially ?
        • Dani: There's no such thing as "provisional API". Teams who decide on backporting must also decide on API.
        • Sergey: CDT has done full feature release every quarter for some time now and hasn't screwed up API...
        • Martin,Lars,Sergey: What about marking "fresh" API as "@noreference under construction" until it's hardened...
          • McQ: Then declare APIs as official only once a year ?
          • Wouldn't want to tie to a yearly cycle again ... but then we're back to the Version Numbering discussion...
          • AI All continue discussion on mailing list or next week.



Sep 27, 2016 - McQ, Dani, Lars, Alex + Sergey Prigogin (guest)

  • Discussion about PMC upstaffing

Sep 20, 2016 - Martin, McQ, Dani, Lars, Alex

  • Resources Leadership - AI Dani reach out to Szymon
  • PMC upstaffing: Focus on large installs; UI Freeze monitor, code cleanup, solid solutions, focus on code reviews
  • Dani: Java 9 Moved to July 2017 - AI Dani talk to the Planning Council, proposing an "Update 1" in July
    • Better for consumers, available via "just update", though little bit extra work (CQ + Release Review)
    • Schedule looks still aggressive when looking at specifications; need to keep the team motivated
  • Dani: SelectionListener SWT Change - reverted for M2 since more clients were affected than expected
    • Proposed change turned out to be source-incompatible - will look at a different approach

Sep 13, 2016 - Dani, McQ, Lars

  • Upstaffing the PMC
  • Build failures due to an SWT Change

Sep 6, 2016 - Dani, Lars, Alex, Martin

  • Dani: Thanks for approving Noopur
  • Dani: Java Language Server Proposal - at the Foundation, will be called "JDT Language Server"
  • Dani: RC4 - Fix for an Equinox p2 issue, only known issue being fixed, looking good
  • Dani: Looking at the generic code editor, would prefer moving some things to M3 (talking to Sopot and Mickael)
  • LTS: Market for paid fixes on old versions not quite as good as expected
  • Release Reviews: When is a feature considered an "important feature" ?
    • Important Features require a full release review thus lots of effort, avoided for Neon.1
    • AI Dani discuss in Planning Council call tomorrow

Aug 30, 2016 - No topics

Aug 23, 2016 - No topics


Aug 16, 2016 - Dani, Martin, Lars

  • Dani will not always be available next two weeks (Eclipse Summit India and IBM Bangalore team visit)
    • Please split the load on +1'ing backport/API requests - please do review the code and set the pmc+1 flag
  • Dani: bug 498106 Oxygen Plan
    • Agreed by all so far, including removal of REL6 as a reference platform
    • Individual subproject Wikis look pretty consistent now
    • UNIX Platforms (Solaris,AIX,HP-UX) have been removed for M1
      • PPC-Linux Releng was also removed but accidentally (due to a hardware failure), will be restored for M2.
    • No consensus on Ubuntu yet - will keep 14.04 in for now, consider taking out on the next update
  • Dani: bug 499164 Version Numbering for Neon.1
    • The original "+5" or "+10" proposal showed some issues:
    • Update with skipping would propagate to features; no tooling; no real benefit of semantic versioning
    • AGREEMENT to keeping using the status quo for now ("allow small updates even with micro uprev only")
  • Lars: p2 pending patches
    • AI Dani send E-Mail to Tom - suggest reviews or merger p2 back to Platform
  • Dani: bug 499399 Eclipse Infrastructure Stability
    • Denis is looking at it - maybe too many requests coming in ?
  • Lars: e4 spy and wizard migration to PDE
    • Dani: Are wizards e4 specific, or could they be used with JFace ?
    • New SWT Layout Spy should go to SWT, rather then keeping in PDE's Build
    • Some spies usable also in RCP Apps - for example the e4 model spy - 6 independent projects, dependency on emf.edit
      • Looks like a big extension to PDE -- consider some consolidation and cleanup (tests, String externalization, ...)
      • AI Lars to check if contributors would be willing to clean up as discussed, then moving into pde.ui would be fine.

Aug 09, 2016 - Dani

  • no one joined - had private conversation with McQ later
    • guys, please announce when you can't join. I can make better use of my time than waiting for you in the call ;-) - thanks.

Aug 02, 2016 - Dani, Martin, Alex

  • Dani: New Oxygen Plan Format
    • AI Dani ask Denis about aggregating the Sub Wiki's into the master page
  • Alex: SWT Fragments for ARM64 etc
    • Tycho doesn't support auto-selecting fragments - in contact with Jan and Tobias
    • Dani: Would like to revert changes - don't want to punish people who are not interested in fragments
    • Not really an SWT problem, so editing .target files would be a clean solution
    • Will probably go with empty (dummy) fragments without natives, as that's the simplest solution
  • Dani: SWT team - Lakshmi going to Sweden, will not be available until end 2016
    • Arun is mostly back, Sravan is now on Releng
    • Need to push further on building at the Foundation!!
    • Alex: Getting CentOS for building ... but test machines are on SLES11, which is too old, will need at least SLES12
      • Dani: Will need an owner at the Eclipse Foundation to ensure this proceeds ! Alex agreed to further drive this.
  • Target Env: Dropping REL6 -- reference platform for testing will only be REL7 (though will continue to run on REL6)
    • Reducing support level this year, in order to prepare for only supporting GTK3 next year

July 26, 2016 - no meeting

July 19, 2016 - no meeting


July 12, 2016 - McQ, Lars, Alex

  • Dani: Hackathon summary

July 5, 2016 - Lars, McQ, Alex, Dani, Martin

  • Lars: SWT move to Java 8
  • Alex: Initial builds of GTK 2.24 for AIX - planning to bump minimum GTK version to 2.24
    • Will remove non-cairo drawing, this is where most of the breakage happens
    • Ubuntu 12.04: 2.24.10 / 3.4.5
    • RHEL 6: 2.24.23-6
    • AIX, HP-UX, Solaris ? -- Oxygen will only focus on Linux, Windows, Mac
    • Secondary Platforms: Not built on EF Hardware, but interested parties can contribute binaries
    • Trying to support Platforms which can't move up to modern GTK at a similar pace as Linux is hard
    • AI Alex write up a message to the Community
  • Lars: bug 486961 extending the Eclipse Text Editor
  • Dani: Build, and Hackathon

June 28, 2016 - McQ, Martin, Alex

  • Discussion about Language Server Protocol
    • MS sponsoring hackathon in Zurich, Dani expected to go there
    • The protocol has an Open Source license, but there is no Open Source Governance ... who owns the specification?

June 21, 2016 -


June 14, 2016 - Dani, McQ, Martin, Lars

  • McQ: Mattermost / Slack for communication
    • not much different than newsgroup or IRC, but very dynamic when everybody is on it
  • Lars: Master is Open
    • Dani: Simple story - if we do need an emergency build we would create the maintenance branch on demand based on the tag
    • Only limitation: We can't update the parent pom's at this time
    • Don't have tools to check if the MANIFEST.MF needs to update - only API Tooling for API changes, but nothing for micro changes (bug 360703) is open to improve that)
    • We do have an alert if there's no version/source change but the binaries changed (e.g. due to a compiler update) but that's not in the workspace
  • Lars: Upgrade SWT to Java 8 for Oxygen ? - to be decided by the SWT team, the PMC is OK with the update if the SWT team decide so
  • McQ: Language API -- Overlap between Orion and Che (from ide-dev mailing list and bug 496114)
    • The protocol is pretty big, but well documented - looks like an improved version of Flux
    • The protocol is generic, implementations need to be specific -- some implementations already ongoing (Javascript)
      • People start working on editors hooking up to the protocol -- does it make sense building a JDT Language Server ?
    • The tricky part is, that the Che workspace model is very different than the Eclipse workspace
    • How to create a small lightweight server that would scale -- one workspace per user may not scale
      • At the beginning, it would be less powerful than JDT today since context would be lacking
      • But the direction is very interesting ... though maybe too many people are implementing the same thing right now
  • Dani: What goes into the Neon Update Releases
    • as discussed on May 17 (see below): Must be in master first, consider for backport after that
    • AI: Dani will prepare a note
  • Dani: Using Sound in Eclipse
    • Eric Rizzo uploaded a feature to provide different sounds for successful or failed JUnit tests (see bug 496003)
    • Martin: CDT has allowed sound for breakpoint actions since long
    • Lars: Moving the Mylyn notification framework to Platform UI was on the plan already, now considered for Oxygen
    • McQ: Every Platform has an OS-Level Notification system so that should really be leveraged
    • Martin: Mylyn notifications can be "active", can OS notifications also be active ? - McQ thinks yes
    • Could work on SWT implementation of host platform notifications in parallel to pushing down the Mylyn API
    • Request on specific JUnit sounds not yet decided.

June 7, 2016 - Dani, McQ, Alex

  • no topics

May 31, 2016 - Dani, Martin, Lars, McQ, Alex

  • Dani: IP Log
    • The tool did not work, but it was manually submitted and approved
    • In previous years, some people wanted the IP Log to not be so publicly visible, so now only project leads can generate and submit it
  • Dani: Release Review
    • Reply to the public E-Mail with comments or +1
  • Dani: Update Jetty to 3.9.3
    • Consensus to update - Jetty team working on fixing their update site
  • Dani: RC4 Status Update
    • Cooling down - maybe 2 fixes from SWT, 1 in Platform/Text Search, and the approved doc fix for deprecating the mac command

May 24, 2016 - Dani, Lars, Martin

  • Dani: IP Log Generator - New version is unable to deal with Eclipse Project, Wayne is working on it
  • Dani: Release Review - Deadline next week (June 2)
  • Dani: Deprecation Request from Brian
    • Command org.eclipse.ui.cocoa.fullscreenWindow -- all PMC agree on the deprecation although late, since it only affects docs
  • Dani: Copyright End Date
    • AGREEMENT to no longer require updating the end date (though committers are still ALLOWED to update it)
    • Will no longer run the automated copyright tool (actually haven't run it the past 3 releases)
    • Will live with the source code notices being inaccurate / incomplete - the accurate state is in Git
    • This is acknowledged to not be ideal, but the best compromise we can come up with since "bulk changes" are not OK
  • Dani: Neon Status
    • Java 9 launching - affects all Java consumers, not clear yet what Oracle will do, no plan changing Equinox/Launcher at this time

May 17, 2016 - Dani, Lars, Martin, Alex

  • Dani: bug 475184 Neon Plan Update 2
    • Windows 10 and Ubuntu 16.04 will be added as "active" Platforms that people do work on
    • SWT would like to remove Windows 8 and Ubuntu 12.04 from the list of reference Platforms
      • Alex: Ubuntu 12.04 has GTK 3.10 which is hard to support
        • Correction (Markus): Ubuntu 12.04 has GTK 3.4.2. Ubuntu 14.04 has GTK 3.10.8
      • Message is clear: "Supposed to run on older Platforms, but these are the primary ones" - including last 2 LTS ones
    • Agreement to keep Windows 7 and remove Windows 8
    • AI Dani to check if SuSE 11 is right (12 been out since 2 years)
  • Dani: Copyright End Date - EMO: To be decided per project
    • IBMers will have to continue updating the copyright end date, regardless of what other companies do
    • Copyright tool: Only the person who made a change is allowed to update the Copyright notice
      • gray area: actually fixing the date can be considered a change
    • Alex is in favor of consistency across the project
  • Dani: Policy for Neon.Update Releases - What to allow in, which rules to apply on the endgame
    • Martin: Fact is, that the Update stream is built less often, and thus also tested less often
    • Rule: Any fix or feature must be in master first (and may be backported thereafter)
    • Will want "some" features in Update, but probably not all of them - decision: discuss feature by feature at PMC
    • Stakeholder who's interested in a backport must send a quick note to the PMC (just like for API change requests)
    • In case too many requests should come in, could still discuss updating the procedure
  • Dani: Neon RC2 Builds Update
    • Currently looking good, but latest Java 9 Launchers broke the Annotation support - investigating
    • Quality generally looking good - "Stock GTK3" very stable now
    • GTK3 on SuSE, Fedora looking much better than Mars (at least with a GNOME shell)
    • Lars: bug 493477 detached editors broken on GTK2 nominating for RC

May 10, 2016 - Dani, Martin, Alex, McQ

  • Dani: Policy for what should go into Neon.Update Releases
    • Would like to be more flexible than in the past - discussion point for next week
  • Martin: RHEL7 -- GTK3 versus --launcher.GTK_Version 2
    • GTK2 rendering still much more reliable than GTK 3 - forced to release commercial software with the GTK2 fallback for now
      • Drawback: Even with MATE desktop using GTK2 (for accessibility), the Browser widget webkitgtk2 is not easy to get since not in the official repos
    • Alex: Desktops are moving faster - adopting change very quickly - cannot keep up with the investment that the Community currently makes in SWT
      • Heavily limiting what we support looks like the only viable approach at the moment...
      • There's 2 big groups of bugs: (a) "Next" version of GTK, and (b) "Old" version like Ubuntu 13.04 which has 3.10 - can we limit support to "latest" ?
      • Martin: Need "LTS" Linux (RHEL 7, RHEL 6, Ubuntu 12, 14 - soon 16).
    • Alex: Gnome people have come up with a "Container environment" for GTK - could ship Eclipse that way ?
      • Limitations: Updates must come through this application - already using Gimp from such an environment
      • Might be able to deliver Eclipse that way next year (Oxygen)

May 3, 2016 - Dani, Martin, Alex, McQ

  • Brian's request on the PMC list
    • McQ: Why would we care about adding small enhancements in RC1 when we should focus on testing and critical fixes
    • Dani: Two parts in the change - the original one (approvable), but another change also sneaked in (enable the prefix search) - not approvable
    • Alex: People don't want to wait for getting in an improvement...
    • McQ: OK for adding as feature to Neon.1 , but Neon.0 should be focused on bug fixes
    • Keep in Gerrit for now - Neon.1 stream is typically opened when no new changes are expected. Rebasing is relatively easy from Gerrit.
    • ACTION McQ to -1 and argue why.
  • Alex: Update on Accessibility
    • broken since GTK 3.8 where accessibility is no longer a module but shipped with GTK itself
    • due to that, the way accessibility is implemented is totally different - no more factories - experimenting with possible approaches
    • Discussing the addition of Eclipse to their test infrastructure, at a meeting a month from now
      • and even so, not sure how well accessibility is tested in GTK itself
    • Launching with -gtk_version 2 is not a workaround, because the v2 GTK doesn't register as an accessible application in newer desktops !

April 26, 2016 - Dani, Lars, Alex, Martin, McQ

  • Mickael's API change request ... tried to address feedback from Markus but then got no additional feedback
  • Alex: Accessibility - broken on recent GNOME and probably others
    • Accessibility is important. Have reports from users who say "Eclipse works for them"
    • McQ: Need to keep some focus and look at what we can do for Neon.1
  • Alex: Platform.ui generification of project
    • Dani: Won't get a consistent story when done piecemeal - needs to be done "per framework" and not necessarily "per plugin"
    • McQ: It's a huge effort - enough by itself for one whole release !
    • Dani: If a meaningful separate unit is found that can be done, but things like e.g. LabelProvider, ContentProvider and TreeViewer can't be done isolated
    • Lars: If a smaller unit of generification work is possible, that's permitted when somebody signs up for the work and it has been discussed in the public
    • ACTION Alex to prepare a message for review and then send that.
  • Lars: Copyright discussion
    • Not having the end date in the copyright notice makes the copyright invalid.
    • The IP Advisory Board will discuss it again.
  • Dani: Update on FEEP
    • Paul not reached out yet
    • A list now shows what's done or in progress - but no time
  • Dani: Update on M7
    • Last 4 builds failed due to infrastructure issues - Maven stuff could not be accessed
    • Will try to enable cache on the build side and re-try until the cache is full


April 19, 2016 - McQ, Dani, Martin, Alex (regrets: Lars)

  • Dani: IP Stuff on Copyright Updates pinged the Lawyers but no update yet, need to wait
  • Dani: FEEP discussed on AC, People were sympathetic to our issues.
    • General direction that FEEP sponsored work is no different than other contributions
    • Wayne took the Action Item setting up a meeting with Paul and interested parties.
    • Website with ongoing FEEP still pending - Dani is tracking
  • Dani: All PMC please review and +1 API requests when you find time
    • McQ does review and typically ask question but not close enough to the code to +1
    • AGREEMENT on "+0" votes to express "no objections but others should approve too
  • Reviews vs. Features
    • Alex: Badge System was quite successful at Fedora


April 12, 2016 - McQ, Dani, Martin, Lars, Alex

  • Lars: Get rid of the Copyright Year Update Requirement
    • bug 485257_c13 EMO: All information is in the git repos
    • McQ: OK lifting the requirement but doesn't want wrong information in files .. get rid of all copyright years ?
    • Dani: Replacing the end-date by "[see git]" might be an option
    • ACTION McQ or Dani talk to IBM Legal, then decide next week
  • Lars: bug 490012 Remove Project Settings to force strictly compatible JRE
    • Example: When don't have admin rights on a customer machine, can't install anything
    • Dani: With the Gerrit Build Validation, the risk of getting unbuildable code is no longer there
    • Proposal: Project requests a particular JRE, but the workspace configures treating this as an error or warning
    • DECISION to get rid of the strict error per project.
  • Dani: bug 475934 API Change on model processing order
    • Dani: Even if this fixes an issue, M7 is late in the game
    • McQ: Does API specify the order of events? - No; only on internal method.
    • McQ: Is this transparent to most consumers, or will 5% have to react in their code ?
      • Lars has a few customers hit by this, but had to do a few tricks to mitigate the issue;
      • Making the change won't break them, but they could now remove their workaround
      • Martin: Not a formal API change and feels like cleanup/polish - M7 as the "performance milestone" feels just right for this
    • Dani: Can be convinced making the change now if it is widely announced; convinced that this will hit more people than helping
    • DECISION to allow making the change and announce widely.
  • Dani: FEEP and EMO Hiring Update
    • EMO working on website update to announce the work being done
    • Didn't talk about the specific SWT issue around "FEEP should provide clean stuff rather than quick fix"
    • Already agreed on hiring a person, communication will come in June/July
  • Dani: IDE-dev proposal
    • People don't find our tips and tricks; suggestion to add to the welcome page
    • Solstice L&F issue on old Browser
      • McQ: Eclipse is a developer tool, and developers run on current browsers ... OK if only old browsers are affected
      • OK if there is a way out (such as choosing a different Theme) - not blocking anyone.

April 5, 2016 - McQ, Dani, Alex, Martin, Lars

  • Dani: FEEP Update
    • Foundation pays Patrik Suzzi as a contractor to look at Platform bugs (triage, and fix)
    • Will focus on critical / blocker bugs initially, or bugs already tagged by committers for 4.6 M7 and 4.6
    • Mickael Barbero still quite involved in Releng - Foundation looking for Releng replacement so Mickael can develop (already reviewed autosave - but might be on vacation at the moment)
  • Dani: Solaris 32-bit
    • Will provide Solaris 64-bit binaries, but stop building Solaris 32-bit with Neon
    • Open question: what does this mean in terms of GTK versions ? (GTK3 would be nice)
      • Alex may start asking questions as soon as the binary fragments are in the repo
    • McQ: Windows 32-bit is still active - future change probably tied to
  • Dani: New Solstice Welcome
    • Some issues with Logo, sometimes it's there sometimes not; Brian working on it, Solstice will become the new default in M7
    • Currently, ONE product logo must work on all Themes - bad design - probably to be changed
    • McQ: Do we mirror the welcome for BIDI ? (Dani thinks yes, saw bugs come along)
  • Alex: FEEP Process Discussion (around Themed Scrollbars)
    • "Scrollbar Theming": Contractor doing work without SWT committers knowing, and disregarding suggestions from the committers
      • Looks like the proper fix from committers was not even tried ?
      • It's OK putting adding a layer if it solves a problem ... but if the proper solution is suggested, it should at least be tried.
      • McQ: Accessibility - with 10000 items it's getting slow - should try the native way
    • Lars: Transparency? - No insight on what FEEP's are actually ongoing
      • AI Dani send note to Wayne and Mike asking for location of FEEP Project List
      • AI Martin compare against AC's requested list, and put on agenda for the next AC call
    • Lars: Styling is actually an important business driver!
    • Alex: FEEP feels like "quick and dirty" is favored at the moment over sustainable solutions !
      • McQ: Perhaps a problem with the funding model ?
      • Dani: Lack of people who want to fix issues on the list of the AC ?
      • McQ: FEEP is still early - time to provide feedback now. Goal Transparency on what's done, and why design decisions are taken.
      • McQ: Who cares for StyledText - have Markus have a conversation with the submitter ?
        • Lars: We have no API for styling scrollbars (background, foreground) - Alex: THIS is what the FEEP should have adressed !
    • Martin: Next step should be conversation with EMO about toplevel transparency, and basic guidelines ("sustainable solution over quick fix").
    • Alex: Need something like JEP (Java Enhancement Process) for FEEP.
      • McQ: Agree this is what we want, but would it discourage submitters ? The lighter-weight the process the better...
    • Alex: If anyone stepped in and did that work it's fine ... but such work sponsored via FEEP seems putting resources in a wrong direction.
  • Lars Question: Google work on improved Type Hierarchy
    • Main work is a new Index, Type hierarchy will be the first client, planned past Neon (contributor: Stefan Xenos).

March 29, 2016 - McQ, Lars, Martin, Dani, Alex

  • Lars: PDE Build in Maintenance - Officially state this ?
    • PDE Build still works; and we're not yet in a position to replace it (it's needed for manual export)
    • Alex: What about not quite declaring maintenance mode, but state something like "for a new project, you might consider Tycho or something else"
    • McQ: DECISION Ensure that on the PDE Build Homepage, we clarify the relationship between PDE Build and other technologies (like Tycho)
  • Lars: Integrate more projects into Platform UI?
    • Having few commits on a component, or overlapping committer list, is not an argument for merging projects
    • Arguments for merging would only be if existing committers struggle with handling incoming contributions (or if component leads want to get merged) ... but that's not quite the case right now. Being able to look at a component by itself has also some value.
    • Alex: Being able to handle Team/UI would make sense for Platform/UI ... but not for the native resources
    • DECISION to not merge projects at this time.
  • Lars: Request for API Changes on eclipse-pmc mailing list
    • McQ: OK for a single PMC member to +1 the obvious ones, but should do due diligence on API changes (eg ping consumers etc)
    • Alex: OK for API Additions, but should discuss API changes
    • Compromise: API change requests must be requested on eclipse-pmc mailing list; PMC members must "speak up" on the mailing list if they want an item discussed, otherwise any PMC member can just approve. AI Dani notify mailing list.
  • Dani: 900 Bugs targeted Neon
    • Need to move away from "just moving bugs from one milestone to the next"

March 22, 2016 - McQ, Dani, Alex, Martin

  • Dani: we shipped M6 on time. Watch out for API change requests on the PMC mailing list.
  • Dani: public holiday on Friday (Good Friday) and/or Monday (Easter Monday)
  • Alex: gave an update on tests running on CentOS with GTK+ 3
  • Discussion about Che
    • McQ: Che still feels monolithic - unfortunate that the Eclipse Resource Model was not considered
    • Dani: Preferences in Che vs. the IDE
    • McQ: What would it take to unify Che, Orion and the Eclipse IDE ?

March 15, 2016 - McQ, Dani, Alex, Martin

  • Dani: Platform/UI got awarded as the Most Open Project :)
  • Dani: Mention PDE/Build as in maintenance? - discuss next week when Lars is back
  • McQ: Merge Subproject Committers Groups? - Membership based on expertise is important
  • Dani: Test Failures due to hidpi work - not entirely done yet but looking good for M7
  • Dani: Lots of failures due to "Widget Disposed" failures
    • Gerrit tests didn't fail, probably sine the event timing on VNC is a little bit different than running manually
    • Alex: VNC/Gerrit tests run on GTK2 whereas all the rest defaults to GTK3 now
    • Looking for a machine with GTK3 to enable them -- working with Mikael Barbero to get this for David
  • VS Code Open Sourced - plugin model is very similar to Orion
    • Excellent with TypeScript, not quite as good as Orion for JavaScript
    • Ideally, would love to see some unification of web-based IDEs (like Che already using Orion editor)

March 8, 2016 - No call


March 1, 2016 - Dani, Martin

  • Dani OOO next week
  • Alex: bug 179924 SSH-agent authentication 3rd party code for SSH using JVM internals
    • Dani: Suggest asking on the bug for confirmation what's the JNA team's plan ... they have a full year time
    • Martin: JNA seems quite widely used these days...
  • EclipseCon next week - Dani and Alex out - Martin will open the Bridge but might be canceled.

February 23, 2016 - McQ, Martin, Dani, Alex

  • Dani: Mars.2 is on track
  • Dani: FEEP Update
    • EMO still looking for people bidding on items prioritized by the AC - Pascal to look at some p2ish issues in April
  • Dani: Update on Welcome
    • Brian de Alwis contributed Solstice based Welcome - looking nice and done right, just a 4th theme to select (some artwork needs IP review)
  • McQ: Scrollbars on Windows and their appearance
    • Dark Theme Scrollbars don't currently look good on Windows - proposal to paint in SWT - currently proposed on StyledText only
    • Dani agrees with Alex that this would open the door to hell
    • McQ: Having seen AWT take ages in terms of emulating OS appearance makes the idea of painting ourselves not too appealing
    • Also concerned about special cases (like performance with ultra-long lines etc)
    • Alex: Any approach in this direction will have bad effects in terms of SWT maintainability and its cross-platform support (think Wayland, RAP, ...). API additions designed with not at least 2 out of the 3 WSs supported are probably not good cross platform APIs considering how different the WSs are.
    • Could a GTK version on Windows perhaps be an alternative? Alex(after meeting additions): GTK is supposed to run fine there and Broadway on Windows can be driving for it as figuring the build on Windows should give working SWT (thanks to Wayland work making GTK port quite crossplatform).

February 16, 2016 - Alex, Dani, Martin

  • no topics

February 9, 2016 - Alex, McQ, Dani

  • Dani: looking good for Mars.2 (4.5.2) - no RC4 planned
  • Dani: please take a look at bug 466370 Welcome Screen redesign
  • Dani: please take a look at bug 472614 Smart Project Importer

February 2, 2016 - Dani, Alex, Martin, McQ

  • Dani: Foundation Hires - Dani hopes they'll find someone in Europe to deal with Releng issues
  • Dani: Neon M5 went smoothly - M6 will be the API freeze; tomorrow is the last planned RC for Mars.2
  • Dani: CQ Deadline on Feb.12 for Neon
  • Dani: bug 486647 for changing the strategy when opening files not associated with Eclipse
    • With M5, can now use the System Editor (default) or Text Editor - there's a request to always use the text editor
    • Dani thinks that for JPG one wants to use the OS
      • Martin agrees, OpenWith and choosing an editor remembers the choice, and one can also remember;
      • We also show the System Icon in Project Explorer, so using the System Editor by default is natural
      • Alex set it to "ask via popup" - can be quite noisy, but avoids trouble when KDevelop or something associated itself with Makefiles or so
    • Agreement that flexibility is fine - see no case for changing the default

January 26, 2016 - Dani, McQ, Alex, Martin, Lars

  • Official PMC representation on AC calls - keep McQ listed since he is interested but nominate Dani instead of John
  • Next round of FEEP coming up - discussed pro and cons
  • Dani: busy week for the team: Mars.2 (4.5.2) RC2 and Neon (4.6) M5 due this Friday - on track

January 19, 2016 - Dani, Alex, Martin

  • Upstaffing PMC - meet next week
  • Update Eclipse PMC representation on the AC
    • Since only Alex will represent the Eclipse PMC at EclipseCon, should push for not making formal decisions unless there is remote attendance support
  • Dani: bug 485429 PDE Build - looks like a lot of people still use it; OK if moving to a different component, but there's still a dependency:
    • Plugin or feature export still needs PDE Build -- Whoever wants to remove it, will need to implement a replacement in the Platform
    • Alex: Platform build currently does double bootstrapping Tycho already ... making this more complex would be a problem
    • Introducing other build system into the Platform would be a wrong approach
    • Will go ahead with what we have for 4.6
  • Alex: As of today's GTK3 build, Eclipse is working fine on Wayland :) thanks to a number of fixes in GTK
    • Some GTK developers are now considering Eclipse as part of their regression suite :)
  • SWT move to Java 7 was much appreciated; moving forward, how to deal with functional interfaces ?
  • Alex would be interested in some styling support in SWT - would simplify some things, at least on GTK
    • Could be a very simple API like setStyle(String) - win32 also seems to have some styling support
  • Martin: Stability of GTK3 on Mars.2 ?
    • Alex: Many distros do their own hacks, so hard to tell... Mars.2 should be stable on every distro that has a stable GTK3 distro without too many patches
    • Can't recommend GTK3 on Ubuntu yet; few things improved lately, but still causes troubles whenever Ubuntu updates their GTK, requires more fixes in SWT; Kubunutu and derivatives might be even worse
      • Good news is that GTK3.16 dropped support for custom theming engines - causes some ugliness but at least it's stable
    • Debian or SuSE should be OK;
    • Expect Neon GTK3 to be more stable everywhere than GTK2

January 12, 2016 - McQ, Dani, Alex, Martin

  • Dani: Upstaffing the PMC
    • Considering "one-time invitation" to get to know candidates better; not so comfortable with a "trial period"
  • Dani: Remove Kim Moir from Platform Releng - ideally talk to Kim before moving forward
  • Dani: bug 485429 Remove PDE Build from our drops?
    • Removing PDE Build is one thing - adding a different technology would be wrong, as wrong as adding EGit
    • McQ and Dani will reach out inside IBM;
    • Patches are still being submitted; middle ground would be remove from the delivery but keep in repo (and deprecate since not adding features)
  • Dani: bug 485257 Copyright Policy Change - waiting on EMO/Legal input
  • Alex: Updating SWT to Java7
  • McQ: Travel for EclipseCon

January 5, 2016 - McQ, Dani

  • Dani: PMC Membership

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