A Brief History of CF

18.4 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.

1989-1999: 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
2010: CF 1.5 released with several minor revisions and corrections
2011: CF 1.6 released with new chapter for observational data