CDR Blog

Based on the constructive feedback we have got on the CDR process so far, we have made some changes to CDR as follows.

First, due to the fact that the CDR process has been described as CDR 0 which has already been finalized, strictly speaking we aren't allowed to make changes to CDR anymore. We have solved this by resubmitting the CDR process itself. You can find the new version at CDR 4 together with the changes compared to CDR 0 (which are also described below).

Since we expect more suggestions for improvement in the near future, we use an exceptionally long initial period for CDR 4 until November 1, 2007. This allows us to make changes as we go along. At the same time, the CDR process in use will already be CDR 4. This means that the CDR process for submitted CDRs until then will be somewhat unstable, but we think that this gives us the advantage of being able to experiment a little such that the final result will hopefully be a better tested process.

Consider this equivalent to the bootstrapping of a metacircular software architecture, or to the development of any new piece of software for that matter, where you have to test and change things as you go as well. ;)

Here are the actual changes to CDR:

• We have added more details about submission of accompanying material, especially with regard to licenses that give us the right to publish it at the CDR website and related publications. We forgot about this issue in CDR 0.


• We have added a section where we ask authors and submitters to provide rationales for changes they have made during the initial period. From now on, we also intend to add archives of previous versions of a CDR for better traceability of such changes.


• We have added a mailing list cdr-discuss. This mailing list is supposed to be used for discussions about specific CDRs. This is especially useful when CDRs are in their initial period, but may also be useful afterwards. The already existing cdr-devel is purely for discussions about issues related to CDR itself (that go beyond the scope of what is described in CDR 0 and CDR 4).

We hope that these changes address the suggestions we have got so far.