[fitsbits] Start of the 'INHERIT' Public Comment Period

[William Pence]

Rob Seaman wrote:
>> Some might suggest that with the abundance of low cost disk space that 
>> is now available, the inherit convention is trying to fix a non-problem.
> 
> The diskspace may be a non-problem (although this is a quirky opinion 
> coming from a FITS compression stalwart :–)

I see it mainly as a cost/benefit issue.  Compression can reduce the 
size of an image by a large factor and hence is probably worth the cost 
of added software complexity.   The INHERIT convention on the other hand 
only reduces the size of the FITS file by a small fraction of 1% in 
typical cases. (e.g., each additional keyword in the header of a 2000 x 
2000 x 16-bit CCD image only increases the file size by 0.001%.

  but the underlying question
> is about the purpose of registering conventions in the first place.

Nobody has suggested that the inherit convention shouldn't be documented 
in the registry.  The main issue that Bob raised earlier is whether the 
IAUFWG (or anyone else for that matter) should be able to ofter any 
advice, or recommendations, to potential new users of the convention, 
beyond simply documenting what keywords are used by the convention. 
This is a general issue that will affect a number of conventions, not 
just the inherit convention.  If the IAUFWG decides this would be 
useful, then a mechanism for adding usage comments or recommendations 
could be added to the Registry.

Bill Pence