[iaufwg] FITS Standard 3.0 is Approved.

[Robert Hanisch]

I'd like to extend a public thank-you to Bill and the committee that
reworked the standard for their commitment and perseverance.  As we have
learned from FITS and VO, standards work is not easy.  Sometimes we obsess a
bit about getting it "right".  Voltaire said "the best is the enemy of the
good enough."  None of our standards are perfect, and we would be foolish to
push too far to make them so, given how many things are changing in the
background.

I particularly applaud Bill for his diplomacy, yet willful push to get
things finished.  It is a delicate balance, and I detected no slips.

Thanks to all!
Bob


On 7/9/08 4:51 PM, "William Pence" <William.Pence at nasa.gov> wrote:

> Dear colleagues,
> 
> I am very pleased to announce that the 3.0 version of the FITS Standard
> document has been officially approved by the IAU FITS working group.
> The current voting tally is 17 'Yes' votes, with 5 members not yet
> voting.  I expect that more votes will trickle in during the next week,
> but in any case, the current number of Yes votes exceeds the 3/4
> majority required to ensure passage.
> 
> I have made this new version of the Standard available on the FITS
> Support office website at http://fits.gsfc.nasa.gov/fits_standard.html.
> Most of the previous versions of the standard are also available on that
> page.
> 
> This should finish our work on this long project that started in January
> 2007.  I would like to thank everyone in the FWG for their efforts
> during this time in reviewing and commenting on the early drafts of the
> document.  Special thanks go to Betty, Clive, Dick, and Lucio who served
> on the technical panel and endured the barrage of more than 300 email
> messages that were exchanged in order to reach agreement on the many
> technical issues!
> 
> regards,
> Bill