[fitsbits] versioning vs. schema -- where does it stop?

[Steve Allen]

On Thu 2005-06-16T18:32:25 +0200, Francois Ochsenbein hath writ:

> There was also some suggestion about having a versioning mechanism in
> FITS -- and it would be a great benefit, I think, to know right from the
> beginning of a FITS input stream that it has (or may have), far beyond the
> beginning of the file, some extensions which may NOT be recognized by an
> old software. I feel this modification would be a good opportunity to
> include this versioning mechanism in FITS.

Doesn't a versioning mechanism effectively require creating and
approving a list of UCDs for various FITS concepts?

I am left wondering whether it is politically possible in the current
environment to create a versioning mechanism for FITS which does not
extend most of the way toward requiring an XML schema definition.

A full XML schema which could be used as part of toolsets which could
->  validate the structure and keyword content of FITS files
->  give complete semantic descriptions of the content of FITS files
->  transform FITS files to and from other representations
All of this is almost certainly a Good Thing.

If the FITS standardization effort starts down the road toward
versioning, can it stop without effectively merging with the
technologies underlying the VO efforts?

--
Steve Allen                 <sla at ucolick.org>                   WGS-84 (GPS)
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