CDS project - what is inside

CDS stands for Community Directory Service. The generalized idea of the CDS means that a community of people/experts on the Internet accumulate and screen information and links found on the Internet and place into a dynamically growing directory (topics with subtopics or subject tree) overseen, structured and controlled by editors who have taken the responsibility to look after the content and structure. Everything is done decentrally through the Internet but on a central server (server group). At the beginning of 2000 the CDS project set out to develop a community of practice Web site for fisheries researchers, so known later as "OneFish". The software was rapidly taken up by a number of other FAO customers mainly interested in building thematic hierarchical portals, metadata catalogues and collaborative work group sites. These customers included WCA-Infonet, a global platform for decisions on water conservation and use in agriculture. As a consequence of the expansion the software requirements evolved rapidly and in unexpected ways. This presentation outlines the history of the project, how the problem of evolving requirements was tackled, how the requirements shaped the software architecture and the software development method employed.