[fitsbits] FITS MIME RFC ready for review

[Steve Allen]

On Tue 2003-06-03T11:58:15 -0700, Tim Pearson hath writ:
> This change would mean that *any* valid FITS file could be described
> as either image/fits or application/fits at the user's discretion.  Is
> this the intention?

Tim is right.

In the context of the Internet Draft the distinction between
"application/fits" and "image/fits" has always hung on the intent of
the producer of the FITS file.  The FITSMIME mailing list spent some
discussion on this.  My interpretation of the discussion is as
follows.

There is a large body of existing FITS files whose intent is to
communicate a single data array in the PHDU.  The Simple Image Access
Protocol (SIAP) prototype created by the VO community expects to use
"image/fits".  Taken together I believe that these justify making the
claim over the "image/fits" entry in the IANA namespace.

--
Steve Allen          UCO/Lick Observatory       Santa Cruz, CA 95064
sla at ucolick.org      Voice: +1 831 459 3046     http://www.ucolick.org/~sla
PGP: 1024/E46978C5   F6 78 D1 10 62 94 8F 2E    49 89 0E FE 26 B4 14 93