[iaufwg] convention or standard

[Doug Tody]

I would go one step further and suggest that if a convention is deemed
useful enough to become a standard, it should be possible to consider
significant revision as it goes through the standardization process.
The resulting standard might then differ significantly from the original
convention.  Merely registering a convention on the other hand, does not
require any revisions other than possibly to the documentation.  - Doug


On Fri, 6 Oct 2006, William Pence wrote:

> Since several of you have recently commented on this subject, here are some
> of my own thoughts on the difference between a "convention" and a "standard":
>
> I view the Registry as simply a convenient central location for making the
> existence of a convention known to the wider FITS community.   Registering a
> convention does not give that convention any greater official approval
> status, and in particular, it does not mean that the IAU FWG endorses or
> recommends that the convention be more widely used.
>
> A registered convention may be regarded to have more "credibility" than an
> unregistered convention because it has gone through the 30 day Public
> Comment process.  This should help ensure that the documentation about the
> convention meets a certain minimum level of clarity and completeness, and it
> should provide some assurance that the convention conforms to the
> requirements of the FITS Standard (or if it doesn't, then any violations
> should be clearly mentioned in the documentation).
>
> There is no fundamental distinction between the conventions in the registry
> and the other similar sorts of conventions that are defined in the FITS
> Standard.  In either case, the convention may be very general or very
> narrowly focused for a particular application.  The only real distinction is
> that the IAUFWG has formally approved the conventions that are in the FITS
> Standard.  Since in the past there has not been any consistently applied
> procedure for approving new conventions into the Standard, there is a
> certain amount of serendipity, or historical accident as to which
> conventions ended up in the Standard, and those that did not.
>
> In some cases, entering a convention into the registry will be the first
> step in applying for official approval by the IAUFWG to add the convention
> to the FITS Standard.  In other cases, the IAUFWG will not give any further
> consideration to the convention.  It is too early to know for sure, but my
> guess is that the IAU FWG will only consider a small minority of the
> conventions in the Registry for approval into the Standard, simply because
> the procedure is too cumbersome, and there is no real incentive to go
> through that whole process.  An alternative might be to create a 2-tier set
> of conventions in the registry by establishing a "Recommended" level of
> conventions that the IAUFWG feels are worthy of wider use, but I think many
> more conventions need to get entered into the registry before considering
> this or other alternatives.
>
> Again, these are just my own thought on this...
>
> Bill
> -- 
> ____________________________________________________________________
> 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)
>
>
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