This process is associated with the book moving through a series of stages that have been named with the colors White, Red, and Blue. White books are under review by the initial technical panel. Red books have graduated to formal review by the member agencies. Red books, while recognizably more mature than white books, are still subject to iterations and revisions. Blue books are the final result of the development.
Blue books are documents that have been approved by all member agencies.
Red books are being developed on additional structure and construction rules, Control Authority Office Policies and Procedures, and technical issues concerning the computer-parsed aspects of SFDU information. The primary focus of SFDUs is transfer of information or knowledge as opposed to the rapid access to the information. To do that, there is heavy focus on the metadata or documentation that needs to go along with the data set to make it generally usable and understandable by the science data recipients. The SFDU is really comprised of a set of international standards and their supporting infrastructure. In the standards area, there are a number of categories of standards.