[iaufwg] Final Inherit Convention discussion

[William Pence]

Dear IAUFWG members,

The public comment period on the INHERIT keyword convention has now 
ended.  In order to speed up the review process, I have taken the 
liberty of making some modifications to the document that describes this 
convention to try to address most of the specific comments that were 
made.  Please review this newest draft (dated April 2007), and reply 
here with any remaining issues or comments you may have about this 
convention.  I have temporarily left the previous version of this 
document (dated March 2007) available, for comparison purposes.  These 
are both available on the registry web page at 
http://fits.gsfc.nasa.gov/fits_registry.html.

I have also provided links to a digest of the email discussions about 
this convention that took place on the FITSBITS and IAUFWG email lists. 
  Please let me know if you find any editing or formating issues with 
these digests.  (The IAUFWG discussions were for the most part about 
philosophical issues related to the Registry, and not this specific 
convention, so I'm debating whether it's really appropriate to include 
the link here).

Note that I have CC'd the original submitters of this convention, Nelson 
Zarate and Perry Greenfield, on this email since they are not on the 
iaufwg list.

I realize that there is still some disagreement about this convention, 
and more generally, about to what extent the IAUFWG should publicly 
express its support (or lack of support) for each convention that is 
entered into the registry.

My own rather pragmatic opinion about this is that it would be too 
difficult and time consuming to reach a consensus of all the IAUFWG 
members  on the pros and cons of each convention.  At this point I would 
rather spend our time and energies on simply getting more conventions 
documented in the registry.

regards,
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)