[fitsbits] Start of "Foreign File Encapsulation" Public Comment Period

[Peter Bunclark]

William Pence wrote:
> This is to announce the start of the Public Comment Period on the "Foreign
> File Encapsulation" FITS convention that has been submitted by the IRAF
> group at NOAO for inclusion in the "Registry of FITS Conventions" that is
> maintained by the IAU FITS Working Group.
> 


     FG_FMODE
         The file mode as a string ("rwx-rwx-rwx", bits not set given as 
"-").


x ? Why would a file be executable? In the tradition of the 
omni-platform transportability of FITS files, it is unlikely that
a file would be really executable.  If the executable was intended
to go onto a machine of the same architecture (and libc....) then
why use FITS?

An example of an executable file, however, would be a virus.
Surely we don't want to go there?

Peter.