[iaufwg] approval of the 'FOREIGN' extension convention

[William Pence]

Dear IAU FITS Working Group members,

The 30-day public comment period on the FITS Foreign Encapsulation
convention ended in early November 2006, so it is now time for a
final review by the IAUFWG.

A total of 12 comments regarding this convention were posted on FITSBITS
during this period. (You can review all the archived messages at
http://listmgr.cv.nrao.edu/pipermail/fitsbits/2006-October/thread.html).
I think the most useful and relevant comments are from Tom McGlynn,
William Thompson, and  Lucio Chiappetti.  Much of the other messages
deal with more general issues such as the purpose of the FITS registry
and are not directly relevant to this specific convention.

A revised document that describes this convention (in MS Word and PDF
formats) has been placed on the FITS registry web site at
http://fits.gsfc.nasa.gov/fits_registry.html.   In my opinion, this
revised document is now sufficiently complete so that the convention may
be officially entered into the Registry.  (Full disclosure requires me
to say that I helped reformat this document).

Please review this document for yourself, and let me know if you have
any further comments or objections about this convention;  If no one has
any objections, then the FOREIGN file encapsulation convention will be
officially entered into the registry on Jan 12th, 2007.  (The rules
allow a 3 week review period,  but I've allowed a little more time
because of the year-end holidays).

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