Why it is on-topic
First of all, the question is on-topic according to the stack-overflow rules, since it covers a "software tools commonly used by programmers", the Java (openjdk) issue tracker.
Why it is relevant for the Java community
Imagine you have found a serious bug in your favorite programming language. One solution is to find a local workaround (which would be a valid stackoverflow question). The other and better solution is to report the bug if this is not already done. Enabling the community members to easily report bugs, comment or vote on bugs, or just getting notified about status updates of bugs and other issues is therefore a necessity!
If the openjdk project makes it unnecessarily hard for Java developers to participate in this workflow it's a valid and actually necessary question to ask for a simplification of this process. Otherwise stackflow will be flooded with workaround questions for bugs that should be directed to a bug tracker.
Stackoverflow is not a customer support
Why am I posting this question here instead of sending it to the openjdk support or posting it in a hidden java forum?
Well, I sent the question to the support and I'm still waiting for an answer. However, the question doesn't concern one person but the whole Java community and therefore should not be hidden in support emails.
Moreover, I'm pretty sure the the question was posted dozens of times in hidden forums or mails and nothing did change. Java developers still don't have a good access to the openjdk bug tracker and keep posting workaround questions on stackoverflow such as:
- Java bug in sleep() when changing OS time : any workaround?
- Workaround for Java bug which causes crash dump
- Java 1.5 JOptionPane paint bug when using panel message/workaround?
- how to workaround a java image scaling bug
- ... and hundreds more ...
Thus, if this question is considered to be off-topic, those questions have to be, too, since they request support on bugs which should be actually discussed in the corresponding tickets of the bug tracker.
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