Roadmap

Things that have changed since the Roadmap was last edited

• C++11 was standardized
• The standards committee created a Network EWG for libraries that can be promoted to the C++ standard library by 2017 or 2022
• We realized that a proposal to Boost is no longer as desirable as it was because:
  • Boost has a difficult process for new libraries (particularly large ones, like ours)
  • The Boost community has evolved and some of the original leaders are not as active
  • A lot of the Boost libraries that we find useful are now standardized, so we don't require it as a dependency
  • Some dependencies we need as a network library (e.g. for cryptography, XML) are not part of Boost, and re-using other open source libraries with different styles, different licenses means that a Boost proposal will be even more difficult.
  • We realize that we are now self-sufficient enough that we can develop at a faster pace with different goals to Boost
  • We want to develop our own community and encourage contributors

Therefore, we would consider dropping the proposal for Boost and concentrate on developing our own community with the eventual goal of standarizing parts of our library.

This would have consequences for the direction of cpp-netlib.

• We can continue to develop libraries that use C++11 features immediately
• We can use 3rd party libraries according to our own requirements
• We can better focus our energy on improving the usability of our libraries, extending them and eventually submitting them as standard proposals (where appropriate)
• We would have to drop the 'boost' namespace
• We can use other auxiliary dependencies (google test + google mock framework)