This directory holds documents relating to the history and development of OCFL. Currently there are two documents that were used in the initial phase of the OCFL effort.
The first is the “Initial Proposal” , written by Andrew Hankinson in September 2017. This document emerged from conversations between Andrew Hankinson and Andrew Woods at the Fedora / Samvera Camp held in Oxford, UK that month. (The location of the initial discussions is the inspiration for the “Oxford” in “Oxford Common File Layout”). The initial proposal was a direct effort to address some challenges presented by the Fedora 4 method of file storage using Modeshape, but also a wider acknowledgement that there may be a need for an application-agnostic method of storing files for long-term digital preservation.
After this proposal was written it was circulated around various mailing lists to try and gauge community interest. Reception was generally positive.
The second document, the “Discussion Paper” was a lengthier expansion on the initial proposal. The first draft was written by Andrew Hankinson in December 2017, but this paper was modified and commented significantly by the community over the next few months. The paper as presented in this directory maintains the community comments, as we believe they are a crucial part of understanding how community feedback helped to shape the effort. The original was written in Google Docs.