[iaufwg] Regional FITS Committee review of the new FIT Standard

[William Pence]

   [This note is primarily intended for the chairmen of the
   4 regional FITS committees, but I'm distributing it to
   the entire IAU FWG for information.]

I would now like to call on the chairmen of the 4 regional FITS 
committees to conduct a review and vote on the proposed new FITS 
standard document.  As a reminder to everyone, the 4 committees and 
their chairman are:

   North America:  Arnold Rots
   Europe:         Preben Grosbol
   Japn:           Osamu Kanamitsu
   Australia/NZ    Mark Calabretta

Under our IAU FWG voting rules (at 
http://fits.gsfc.nasa.gov/iaufwg/iaufwg_rules.html) the nominal time 
period for this review is 3 weeks, but I think we should extend this to 
allow for the end of year holidays, and thus ask that the voting be 
completed by January 14, 2008 if possible.

All the necessary review material is available on the following web 
page:  http://fits.gsfc.nasa.gov/fits_draft.html

In particular, I suggest that the committees concentrate their reviews 
on the following 3 documents:

   1. Summary of Recommended Changes, dated 2007 July 23.
      This document summarizes most of the changes that were
      initially recommended by the Technical Panel.

   2. The Technical Panel's response to the public comments that
      were received from 23 July to 22 October 2007.

   3. The color-coded "differences" document that shows in detail
      all the differences between the latest new draft (version 3a)
      and the previous official version 2.1b.

Each regional FITS committee should conduct a formal vote on whether or 
not they endorse these proposed changes to the FITS Standard document. 
  A vote of approval requires that at least 2/3 of the committee members 
cast a vote, and at least 2/3 of the votes must be in favor of the 
proposed changes.

In addition to this overall vote on the proposed changes, the committees 
may also submit comments or suggestions for improving the new Standard 
document.  The IAU FWG will consider these comments during its final 
review of the document.

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)