Comments on NOST FITS Standard 1.2

[William Pence]

Just a couple clarifications regarding the deprecation of random groups:

1.  Deprecate is defined in the FITS standard as: 

    "To express earnest disapproval of.  This term is used to refer to
     obsolete structures that ought not to be used but remain valid."

This does not imply that deprecated features will be disallowed in the
future.

2.  The random groups structure was deprecated in version 1.0 of the
NOST FITS definition that was approved in June 1993.  The current draft
version 1.2 of the document that is available for public comment has
not made any changes in this regard.

-Bill Pence

>    I would like to raise a strenuous objection to the "deprecation" of
> the random groups format in the current draft NOST FITS definition
> document.  I'm not sure exactly what the term "deprecated" means but
> I interpret it as implying that it will be disallowed at some point
> in the future.  [snip]
>
> -Bill Cotton