Fedora 6.0.0

The next major version of Fedora will focus on the following requirements:

1. Replace the ModeShape persistence layer with a different technology that implements the Oxford Common File Layout
2. Add a synchronous query service
3. Improve the fixity service
4. Address known performance and scale issues
5. Support migrations from earlier versions of Fedora (3.x, 4.x, and 5.x)

Further details can be found on the design page.

Why the Oxford Common File Layout?

The OCFL provides the following benefits:

1. Parsability, both by humans and machines, to ensure content can be understood in the absence of original software
2. Robustness against errors, corruption, and migration between storage technologies
3. Versioning, so repositories can make changes to objects allowing its history to persist
4. Storage diversity, to ensure content can be stored on diverse storage infrastructures including cloud object stores
5. Completeness, so that a repository can be rebuilt from the files it stores

These benefits supplement the digital preservation features already provided by Fedora, including:

1. Fixity: Checksums can be calculated, stored and compared on demand
2. Versioning: Objects and files can be versioned and restored on demand
3. Import/Export: Objects and files can be exported on demand to facilitate their use in other elements of a digital preservation workflow
4. Audit: Preservation metadata can be generated by repository events and indexed in a triplestore for querying

The combined functionality of Fedora with OCFL persistence will better support an overall digital preservation strategy.