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The Community Network Markup Language is a project of people working on an open and scalable standard for local mesh networks, also referred to as local clouds. It is the aim of the project to define an ontology which acts as the basis for the set up and operation of mesh clouds.

The CNML project works on an industry standard (ISO) that enables communities, companies and individuals to set up their own mesh clouds faster, easier and with less resources. The open CNML industry standard is intended to function across platforms, technologies and protocols, effectively acting as a meta protocol as well as a metalanguage. The CNML works across all OSI layers ultimately enabling standardized communication in mesh networks between devices and therefore among participants. It describes different parameters in a mesh clouds including distance, level of publicity and localization of nodes and participants. The CNML project was initiated by Alexander Klosch from Germany in 2006 during the Wizards of OS.

What is the Community Network Mark Up Language

CNML functions in mesh clouds as a metalanguage and at the same time as a metaprotocol. It is a metalanguage which describes as precisely as possible the resources necessary to deploy and run local mesh networks. And it functions as metaprotocol across OSI layers as well as among communicating devices and locations based services. The CNML can be implemented on technological levels as well as relational levels. It also works as a descriptor of communal relations visible on political and society levels.

Why do we need the CNML - Goals of the CNML

It is the goal of the CNML to create an industry standard (ISO) that enables communities, companies and individuals to set up their own local mesh clouds faster, easier and more efficiently.

Standardizing the parameters of local mesh networks offers numerous advantages:

• Lower Set up Cost: Projects can follow predefined standards and parameter descriptions resulting in faster deployments
• Lower Operation Cost: The CNML enables self-healing networks
• More Privacy: The CNML enables private communication as well as anonymous communication models
• Less Censorship: The CNML enables the deployment of distributed databases with hash tables which make cencorship inside mesh networks impossible
• Less Control with decentralised models
• Easy Deployment:
• Easy Maintenance:
• More Stability of Networks:
• Opportunities for local Businesses: Locations based services
• Less Input of Resources:

Developing the CNML as an industry standard facilitates the operating of a cloud network. It makes it easier and faster to deploy local mesh networks resulting in lower resource usage and less input of human and financial resources to set up communication infrastructures. Mesh networks working with the CNML are more efficient to operate and offer more services for users such as locations based cloud services.

Real World Implementations

After the CNML is implemented in a local mesh cloud, applications supporting the standard can implement special locations based services such as local content management systems with distributed databases or decentralized server independent search engines. CNML works here as an arrow ¨>>¨. Where to go and to connect to services on a node and which location and node to choose.

The CNML acts as:

• a technology standard to realize "self-healing" networks, service announcement and the ability of devices to self-include into existing networks.
• a set of standards for getting statistical and geographical data from existing community networks, so that for example mapping servers can be shared (because of a common dataset, or the other way around, new mapping services can be created easily on existing standards and even existing data)
• a standard description base for distributed captive portal systems in mesh networks

How does the Community Network Mark Up Language look like

A simple draft of what kind of parameters can be specified inside the CNML ontology:

 <cnml>
  <hardware capabilty>
  <siftware services>
  <devices> cpu, memory, storage, devices, radio level etc. </devices>
  <mapping> gps, name </mapping>
  <statistics></statistics>	
  <network environment>
  <content sharing>
  <node information>
  <owner of device>
  <picopeer>
  <traffic>
  <scale of interest to the network>
  <personal keyring>(hold private, only given volountary)
 </cnml>

CNML Standards Working Group

The CNML working group is currently being set up by a group of community developers and company representatives mainly based in Germany. It works on a standard for a scalable communication structure for local mesh networks. The CNML working group aims to cooperate with relevant actors, communities and companies all over the world. It is the ultimate goal of the CNML working group to establish CNML as an open industry standard.

How to join the CNML Working Group

1. Join the mailinglist on https://freifunk.net/mailman/listinfo
2. help collecting and writing resources in the wiki
3. contact the group for official participation contact@cnml.info

Join projects using CNML and publish free content about the CNML and mesh networks with our friends

	Commons Upload your freely licensed media - photos, screenshots, audio, videos, interactive content to the commons project and tag it CNML		Wikinews Grab CNML Press Releases and write about the CNML for the free-content news resource on the net		OLSR.org Install the OLSR Routing Protocol for mesh networks on your PC or Mobile Device like the Iphone or Google phone
	Wikibooks Write a free textbook about the CNML		Open-Mesh.org Install the B.A.T.M.A.N. routing protocol on your PC or Mobile device like Openmoko		Freifunk Join the Freifunk Community and help us implementing the CNML
	Wikipedia Write entries about CNML or help improve pages about the CNML and community mesh networks on the biggest encyclopedia of the world		Open Hardware Initiative Join the Open Hardware Initiative to transfer the idea of openess and open standards to the hardware world.		OpenWRT Support the development of OpenWRT which is the basis for mesh networks implementing the CNML