Section: 7.3 A Brief History of CF

7.3 A Brief History of CF

How a community standard gets established from the bottom up, with agreement on open processes for evolving conventions and reaching consensus.

Evolved from simple netCDF User Guide conventions (1989), COARDS standard (1995), GDT (1999), and NCAR CSM (1999) conventions
2000-2003: Developed by volunteer efforts (Brian Eaton, Jonathan Gregory, Bob Drach, Karl Taylor, and Steve Hankin)
2003: CF 1.0 released
2005: CF white paper discussing future governance circulated
2006: WCRP/WGCM asked to assume responsibility for stewardship
2007: Rules for community-initiated changes to CF conventions agreed upon
2008: CF 1.3 released, atmospheric chemistry community use increases
2009: CF 1.4 released, standard names significantly expanded to support CMIP5, marine observations, and other uses