Use of scm_ref and openjdk_scm_ref in marketplace JSON

[gnu-andrew]

I'm not clear on how these two fields within the JSON file are meant to be used, especially as there is no reference to the repository which these references resolve against.

I'm guessing openjdk_scm_ref is intended to resolve against the upstream OpenJDK GitHub repository for that release (e.g. https://github.com/openjdk/jdk17u for 17) but I have no idea with scm_ref. Even the former is problematic for us with 8u, as we use https://github.com/openjdk/shenandoah-jdk8u rather than https://github.com/openjdk/jdk8u

Are these actually intended to be consumed in some way by the marketplace? Would it be worth having corresponding links to the repository in openjdk_scm and scm?

[johnoliver]

scm_ref is a reference to the commit within your own repository off of which the build is based, bear in mind this is optional. Ultimately the intent of openjdk_scm_ref is to allow people to track back to the upstream project the commit off of which this build is based, at the moment it is purely provided as information and not used. Adding a link to the upstream project off of which the project is based is possible. Could you place a tag in that field that would match an appropriate commit both repositories?

[gnu-andrew]

Ok, I guess scm_ref is redundant for us as we don't have another repository; we directly work with upstream repositories. I hadn't realised it was optional, so I guess we can simply remove it.

openjdk_scm_ref only makes sense to me if we also list the upstream project, with an openjdk_scm field. With both those pieces of information, the marketplace could link to the repository source on GitHub e.g. https://github.com/openjdk/jdk11u/releases/tag/jdk-11.0.15-ga

At the moment, the tags in both fields are the same for us, so the scm_ref is redundant.