Our plans are constrained by two strong backward compatibility constraints:

• Don't break archives: new library software must be able to access previous netCDF data,
• Don't break programs: new libraries must support previous APIs.

Release 4.1.2 is available in beta form, and includes bug fixes, performance improvements, and a major refactoring of netCDF-C internals. A new C++ API for netCDF-4 from Lynton Appel with the the Culham Centre for Fusion Energy (CCFE) is included.

Release 4.2, currently planned for early 2011, is planned to include:

• Port C-based netCDF-4 to Windows, necessitated by recent refactor of internal architecture of netCDF to use a dispatch table mechanism
• Refactor netCDF Fortran-90 API to use Fortran-2003 C-interoperability layer, simplifying and standardizing Fortran support
• Create netCDF-4 test file collection to support netCDF-4 tool developers, with comprehensive nested type tests (compound, variable-length, and array member types)
• Provide examples that use new observational conventions.
• Add a few C-based iterator-like interfaces for developers of generic applications.

2010 Unidata NetCDF Workshop > The Future of netCDF