[iaufwg] FITS Voting Results

[William Pence]

Dear IAU FITS Working Group members:

I'm pleased to report that everyone has voted in a timely manner on the 2 
FITS proposals, despite it being the middle of the vacation season for many 
of us, and the results are as follows:

1.  Resolution to endorse the FITS MIME-type proposal:

        22-Yes, 0-No, 0-Abstain

2.  Proposal for an Australia/New Zealand regional FITS committee:

        19-Yes, 1-No, 2-Abstain
        (90.9% non-abstaining votes, 95% of which are 'Yes').

Both vote tallies far exceed the required 3/4 majority, therefore both 
proposals are approved by the IAU FITS Working Group and take effect 
immediately.  (Also note that the 'No' vote for the 2nd proposal does not 
cause the automatic 6-month delay in the proceedings because this vote was 
on an internal procedural issue, not a FITS standards issue).  I plan to 
post an announcement of these results on sci.astro.fits/FITSBITS very shortly.

In the interests of providing full transparency of the voting process I list 
below the date and time stamps (in your local time zone) for the three email 
messages that cast a 'No' or 'Abstain' vote:

     No:      2004-07-23T11:53:27
     Abstain: 2004-07-23T10:54:11
     Abstain: 2004-07-27T11:53:23

As was suggested by Preben Grosbol, these timestamps allow those of you who 
did not vote in the affirmative to verify that your vote was recorded 
correctly.  (If you no longer have a copy of your email vote message, I can 
'bounce' a copy back to you).

Regarding the FITS MIME type proposal, the next step will be for the authors 
of the proposal to submit it to the appropriate Internet regulatory 
authorities for approval as an Internet standard. Note that our vote to 
endorse the FITS MIME type proposal does NOT make it an Internet standard; 
that authority rests with the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) and the 
Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA).

Regarding the new Australia/New Zealand regional committee, first, I think 
it is clear from the discussion that preceded the vote that the few 'No' and 
'Abstain' votes should not be interpreted as a desire to exclude this 
particular geographic region and instead reflects some dissatisfaction with 
the whole concept of having any region committees at all.  This issue will 
likely receive more attention at about the time of the next IAU meeting in 
2006 when Commission 5 will again need to review and justify the continuing 
existence of all of it's Working Groups.

Mark Calabretta has agreed to organize the Australia/New Zealand Regional 
FITS committee and serve as it's first chairman.  As such Mark will become a 
member of the IAU FITS Working Group Executive Committee along with the 
other Regional committee chair persons.  Finally, while it is not the role 
of the IAU FITS Working Group to approve or disapprove the membership on 
this new regional committee, I think it is fair to say that we encourage 
Mark to strive for as wide a representation as possible, including diverse 
geographic regions and organizations within both countries.

regards,
Bill
-- 
____________________________________________________________________
Dr. William Pence                          William.D.Pence@nasa.gov
NASA/GSFC Code 662         HEASARC         +1-301-286-4599 (voice)
Greenbelt MD 20771                         +1-301-286-1684 (fax)