Common Lisp Document Repository (CDR)

* What

The Common Lisp Document Repository is a repository of documents that are of interest to the Common Lisp community.  The most important property of a CDR document is that it will never change: if you refer to it, you can be sure that your reference will always refer to exactly the same document.

* Why

There have been a number of attempts to establish a standardization process for Common Lisp after it has been officially published as an ANSI standard. The ANSI standardization was very costly and very time consuming (according to http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.lisp/msg/15248a1b11c5a603 it took nearly 10 years and at least $400K).

The goal of the Common Lisp Document Repository is to be more light-weight and more efficient. We focus on one aspect of standardization: the ability to refer to a specification document in an unambiguous way.

The Common Lisp Document Repository intentionally does not define a process for coming up with specifications or any other means to guarantee some level of quality of the submitted documents. Instead, we aim for a community-driven, decentralized approach to come up, discuss and finalize specifications. In this sense, we only provide the services of librarians.

We hope that the Common Lisp Document Repository has the potential to prove useful in establishing new de-facto standards, and to serve as a stepping stone for more formal standardizations in the long run.

* Where

The Common Lisp Document Repository is hosted at http://cdr.eurolisp.org.

* How

The Common Lisp Document Repository is a repository of printable text documents that contain material that are of interest to the Common Lisp community. For example, a CDR document can contain specifications of libraries, language extensions, example implementations, test suites, articles, etc. Each CDR document will be identified by a number. Form and possible contents of CDR documents are not prescribed, but the goal is to provide the Common Lisp community with a way to unambiguously refer to a document by way of mentioning its CDR number. The presence of a document in the CDR repository does not imply a recommendation of any kind, but we leave the acceptance or rejection of particular documents to the community's natural selection process. We expect that some CDR documents will claim to be replacements of, or clarifications for, previous ones, but again such statements do not mean that this repository's goal is to enforce such developments. We are just librarians who want to make it possible to refer and cite documents of interest to Common Lispers.

We use a light-weight process that consists of the following steps:

1. One or more authors submit a document.

2. We check that the document is a printable text document, that it is indeed about Common Lisp, and that it does not contain objectionable material (like porn, religious or political statements, etc.).

3. The document will be immediately assigned a fresh CDR number that can be used to refer to the document. We will make the document available for an initial period, after which it will be frozen and moved into final status, unless the authors decide to withdraw the document during the initial period.

For more details about the process, see the manual below.

* Manual

The CDR Process

1. Submit your document. It should be in a widely used format, like PostScript, PDF, etc. We will check the printability of your document with common current readers. If we cannot print the document, we will ask you to resubmit.

2. Convince us that we have the right to make the document publicly available. The easiest is if you are the author and give us the (non-exclusive) publishing rights, or if the document has a free license for documents, like the GNU Free Documentation License or a Creative Commons license, or something similar. (The license should, however, not affect any other material at the CDR website.) We do not want to exclude the possibility of publishing the CDR repository in other forms, like on CD-ROMs or DVDs, etc. So make sure that the publishing rights are not restricted to the CDR website.

3. We will make the document and any accompanying material (see below) available at the CDR website, under a fresh CDR number that has not been used for any other CDR document before. There will be an initial period of six weeks in which you can send us updated versions, for example to correct typos, etc., which will replace any older version with the same CDR number. You can negotiate with us a longer initial period, but the maximum length is one year. After the initial period, we will freeze the last version of the document and any accompanying material, move it into final status and provide this version from then on as part of the CDR repository, unless you decide that you withdraw the document, in which case we will only provide the title of the document and indicate its withdrawn status for the records.

We reserve the right to reject documents when they are not clearly related to Common Lisp, or contain objectionable material, including in its accompanying material. We also reserve the right to withdraw documents and their accompanying material from the repository in case there are doubts with regard to copyrights. Our priority here is to avoid legal issues that have any negative impact on us as publishers.

You are encouraged, but not required to:

- Discuss your document publicly before you submit it as a CDR document, for example in mailing lists, newsgroups, or other public forums.

- Provide an archive of the discussions that influenced the contents of the CDR document that we can publish as accompanying material alongside the document itself.

- Provide an abstract of the document that we can use on the website so that readers get a better idea what to expect from the document.

- Provide a rationale as part of the document why it is related to, and/or important for, Common Lisp.

- Use an established structure for the contents of a document, like for example the structure used for issues that accompany the ANSI Common Lisp specification.

- Provide the sources for the document, in case it is generated using, for example, a document preparation system like LaTeX.

- Provide contact email address(es) and/or website URL(s) for further information about the specific document. Email addresses and website URLs can always be updated, including for CDR documents in final status.

- How do I submit a document?

Send it to editors@cdr.eurolisp.org. There can be a delay before we react to a submission, but typically we should react promptly. If you don't hear from us within 7 days, bug us. Our first reaction will contain:

1) An assessment whether we accept the document for publication or not.

In case we accept the document, our reaction will also contain:

2) A fresh CDR number that can be used to refer to the submitted document.
3) A URL where the document is published.
4) A deadline when the initial period for this document ends (usually after 6 weeks).

We will also announce the submission of the new document, for example in mailing lists, newsgroups and/or in other appropriate ways.

- How do I refer to a document? 

A CDR document has a unique number. You can refer to it by mentioning that number. Assuming the number of a CDR document is 42, ways to refer to that document include, but are not limited to, "CDR document 42", "CDR 42" and "document 42 in the Common Lisp Document Repository". A URL of the form "http://cdr.eurolisp.org/document/NNN" (for example "http://cdr.eurolisp.org/document/42" for document 42) can be used to refer to the document as well.

- How do I change a document?

During the initial period (usually 6 weeks) after a document has been submitted for the first time, the document can be resubmitted in a changed form any time by sending it to editors@cdr.eurolisp.org. Afterwards, a document cannot be changed anymore. Under exceptional circumstances, prolongation of the initial period can be negotiated.

- How do I remove a document?

During the initial period (usually 6 weeks) after a document has been submitted, the document can be removed by the authors at any time by sending a request to editors@cdr.eurolisp.org. Afterwards, a document can only be removed under exceptional circumstances. When a document is removed the repository will show the title of the document and indicate its withdrawn status for the records.

Marc Battyani, Pascal Costanza, Arthur Lemmens, Edmund Weitz