[orbit-dev] Bugfixing 3rd party code due to lack of a release?

["Oberhuber, Martin" <Martin.Oberhuber@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hello,

We have a major bug open that can lead to deadlocks
when working with FTP. This is a known problem in
Jakarta Commons Net:
https://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=202758  

We are not able to work around this major issue by
using the original 3rd party lib. But patches exist 
for that very problem in Commons Net, and those patches 
have been applied to the Commons Net codebase:
https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/NET-3
https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/NET-73

The patches have been provided and tested by the 
submitter since more than a year. They seem to be
scheduled for an 1.4.x or 1.5 release, but such a
release has not (yet) happened and it is unclear
if it would happen.

I would very much like to apply those patches to the
Commons Net version we use at Eclipse. In fact I did
apply and test the patches, and I'm ready to check in,
but here is what I do not know:

* What do we (in Orbit) think about home-grown bugfix
  versions of 3rd party libs that have not been officially
  released by the maintainer? Can we do this?

* What about IP cleanliness? The patches are 11 and 16 
  lines of code respectively, plain bugfix only, and
  I am in contact with the original author / submitter. 
  Can we let this into Eclipse CVS?

Thanks for any help and insight.

I'd be ready to check in (just 1 .class file and 1
src.zip changed) when I get a GO to put this into the
Fall maintenance.

Thanks,
--
Martin Oberhuber
Wind River Systems, Inc.
Target Management Project Lead, DSDP PMC Member
http://www.eclipse.org/dsdp/tm