This page tries to explain why some issues on the Apache Hadoop JIRA categories get closed as'invalid'.
The JIRA server at https://issues.apache.org/jira/ is used for two things
- discussing and co-ordinating feature development of Apache Hadoop. We welcome people who want to get involved with this.
- reporting fixing bugs in the code
What it is not is a way of people reporting their "I couldn't get Hadoop to work" problems.
Given that Hadoop is used on thousands of machines by companies like Yahoo!, Facebook and eBay, we are reasonably confident that Hadoop works on:
- well configured servers.
- well configured networks.
- well configured Hadoop installations.
If Hadoop does not work for you, then these are the likely problems -your problems related to local configurations.
These are not bugs in Hadoop -please do not file bugs on JIRA about them
Bug reports of the form "I can't get Hadoop to work", are going to be closed as invalid, unless there is clear evidence that the problem exists in an Apache release.
Which raises another issue. JIRAs cannot be filed against distributions of Hadoop that aren't bundling the Apache releases of Hadoop artifacts. We can't, because we don't all track what those changes are.
Vendors of Hadoop-derived products provide their own mailing lists and forums. Please try there.
The hadoop-user mailing list is the place at Apache where discussions on installation and configuration problems should take pace. Not JIRA, not hadoop-general. Not the -dev lists. Asking the developers for help on configuring your system is like emailing the linux-kernel mailing list for help getting /etc/fstab right.
There are a number of quality Books on Hadoop. These are worthwhile investment.
The source is all there for you to explore.
This may seem unfair for the developers not to care about your "critical" issue and close it as invalid, despite the fact they are clearly the experts in Hadoop internals. However they -we- are busy trying to build the future of Hadoop, the operating system for data. Most of the people working on this are being paid to do so, either from companies whose business is built around selling supported Hadoop-based products, or from people who use in production internally. None of these people have the time to help you -because if they did help everyone with a problem, they'd never get anything done.
Those developers who are working full time for downstream redistributors of Hadoop works are being paid through support revenue -and their companies have support teams who will help -as can others on the Distributions and Commercial Support page. Those developer using Hadoop on internal projects probably get to field lots of internal support calls -which keeps them busy enough.
That's why your JIRA issue was closed. It's not that the developers don't care that you can't get Hadoop to work -it's that they aren't the right people to ask.
Sorry.