Most of our technical documents belong to one of the following formats, which follow a common governance and versioning process.
DPP Recommendation
A formal technical recommendation from the DPP, or a normative definition of specific technical parameters. Implementers of a DPP Recommendation are usually expected to implement it in full.
DPP Guidance
Supporting information, guidelines, or suggested implementation parameters. They are usually suggestions rather than requirements, and may be implemented in full or in part.
Delivery Requirements
Template documents, used by content providers to define their own delivery requirements. Designed in line with DPP Recommendations, or other standards and specifications.
Governance
DPP documents using the above formats undergo a formal governance and approval process. The process begins with a Project Group made up of interested DPP members, who work on the document. This is followed by a review process involving a broader group of interested DPP members.
The Project Group will have a Chair (usually a volunteer from a DPP member company) and a DPP Project Lead (from the DPP staff). Wider reviews are conducted by the DPP Tech Network.
The review process is as follows:
- The Project Group prepares a draft.
- The Project Group Chair and DPP Project Lead review the document and agree when to submit the document for wider review.
- The draft document is sent to the DPP Tech Network mailing list, and, where relevant, discussed at the quarterly DPP Tech Network meeting.
- Two weeks are allowed for DPP members to review the document. Comments are submitted to the Project Group Chair and DPP Project Lead.
- Where necessary, the Project Group Chair and DPP Project Lead will make minor changes to the document based on the comments.
- If any of the feedback received is significant enough to require a redraft of the document, the process begins again.
- If no substantive changes are required, the Project Group Chair and DPP Project Lead propose the final document to the DPP CTO for approval and publication.
Versioning
We use simple version numbers for our documents, of the form:
majorVersion.minorVersion(.fixVersion)
The components are:
- majorVersion - a significant update, with major new functionality or changes. Backwards compatibility is always an aim, but is not guaranteed.
- minorVersion - a smaller update, with some new features or changes. Backwards compatible with all other minor versions of the same major version.
- fixVersion - a change that does not involve any technical change, and would not require any updates from implementers. May include things like fixing typos.
Partner Published Documents
In addition to DPP documents, some of our specifications are published in partnership with organisations such as:
