As decided at the TDWG Annual Meeting, 21-26 October 2003 in Lisbon, on 1. December 2003 we did release a stable review version "SDD 0.9". However, it took me, Bob, and Kevin several weeks longer to finish the associated documentations. Please take a look at:

http://160.45.63.11/Projects/TDWG-SDD/index.html

and follow the link under "Overview of available schema documentation".

It is shortly before Christmas and hopefully most of us have other things to do or think than SDD. However, if you should have some time over the holidays, or perhaps your new year's resolutions list is not yet overly full, please do try to get involved.

We urgently need a fresh review and detailed criticism, especially from those who either hold descriptive data, develop applications for the identification of biodiversity, or are involved in GBIF and intend to consume descriptive data.

The preferred medium for discussion is the SDD WIKI (see starting page for link and explanation). If you have problems using the WIKI do not hesitate to use the list instead. Please also respond to minor issues and errors, perhaps by direct mail, so that we can eliminate them over time.

Merry Christmas greetings to all of you,

Gregor ---------------------------------------------------------- Gregor Hagedorn (G.Hagedorn@bba.de) Institute for Plant Virology, Microbiology, and Biosafety Federal Research Center for Agriculture and Forestry (BBA) Koenigin-Luise-Str. 19 Tel: +49-30-8304-2220 14195 Berlin, Germany Fax: +49-30-8304-2203

Often wrong but never in doubt!