The CoFI Language Design Task Group was formed at the founding meeting of the Common Framework Initiative, in Oslo, September 1995. The working meetings held in Paris (November 1995), Munich (January 1996), Oxford (March 1996), Paris (May 1996), Munich (July 1996), Edinburgh (November 1996), Paris (January and April 1997), Amsterdam (September 1997), Bremen (January 1998), and finally Lisbon (April 1998) helped to guide the subsequent design of CASL. The following persons have participated in some or all of these meetings: Egidio Astesiano, Hubert Baumeister, Jan Bergstra, Gilles Bernot, Didier Bert, Mohammed Bettaz, Michel Bidoit, Mark van den Brand, Maria Victoria Cengarle, Maura Cerioli, Christine Choppy, Ole-Johan Dahl, Hans-Dieter Ehrich, Hartmut Ehrig, Jose Fiadeiro, Marie-Claude Gaudel, Chris George, Joseph Goguen, Radu Grosu, Magne Haveraaen, Anne Haxthausen, Jim Horning, Hélène Kirchner, Kolyang, Hans-Jörg Kreowski, Bernd Krieg-Brückner, Pierre Lescanne, Christoph Lüth, Tom Maibaum, Grant Malcolm, Karl Meinke, Till Mossakowski, Peter D. Mosses, Peter Padawitz, Fernando Orejas, Olaf Owe, Gianna Reggio, Horst Reichel, Don Sannella, Giuseppe Scollo, Amilcar Sernadas, Andrzej Tarlecki, Eelco Visser, Frédèric Voisin, Eric Wagner, Michal Walicki, and Martin Wirsing.
The acronym CASL for the Common Algebraic Specification Language was originally proposed by Christine Choppy.
This document has been developed by Peter D. Mosses, originally on the basis of the design proposals and notes made available before the Munich meeting in July 1996 and the agreements reached during that meeting. Its preparation has been greatly assisted by the timely production of the minutes of several meetings by Christine Choppy.
Subsequent versions of this document have attempted to incorporate the improvements suggested in various comments and notes from the following persons: Egidio Astesiano, Hubert Baumeister, Jan Bergstra, Gilles Bernot, Didier Bert, Michel Bidoit, Pietro Cenciarelli, Maria Victoria Cengarle, Maura Cerioli, Christine Choppy, Ole-Johan Dahl, Marie-Claude Gaudel, Chris George, Joseph Goguen, Radu Grosu, Anne Haxthausen, Jim Horning, Hélène Kirchner, Kolyang, Hans-Jörg Kreowski, Bernd Krieg-Brückner, Christoph Lüth, Till Mossakowski, Peter D. Mosses, Olaf Owe, Gianna Reggio, Erik Saaman, Don Sannella, Andrzej Tarlecki, Christophe Tronche, Eelco Visser, Frédèric Voisin, Michal Walicki, Bjarke Wedemeijer, Martin Wirsing, and Uwe Wolter.
The design of the abstract syntax and semantics of CASL has been much influenced by the work of the CoFI Semantics task group on the formal semantics of CASL, which has been produced mainly by Hubert Baumeister, Maura Cerioli, Anne Haxthausen, Till Mossakowski, Don Sannella, and Andrzej Tarlecki. The concrete syntax (input syntax and display format) of CASL has been designed primarily by Michel Bidoit, Christine Choppy, Bernd Krieg-Brückner, and Frédéric Voisin, and coordinated by Peter D. Mosses. The design was assisted by the implementation of several prototype parsers for (basic and structured) CASL specifications, see Appendix C. The coordinator of the Language Design task group is Bernd Krieg-Brückner.