[fitsbits] Publishing FITS conventions on arXiv?

[Rob Seaman]

Hi,

A major feature of the FITS standard is that it is published in the refereed literature.  This is unusual, perhaps unique, in the realm of standards.  FITS is now also defined by the registered FITS conventions that are layered on top of the standard itself.  Few, in any, of these have been published in any sense.  A recent trend in astronomy has been to use the arXiv preprint archive as a publication mechanism for papers from the astronomical software community, for instance for IVOA Recommendations such as:

	http://arxiv.org/abs/1110.0523

Comments on whether we should similarly publish the FITS conventions in the same way?  The value of FITS, in particular the value of the FITS conventions, is a network effect that is proportionally increased by the number of community members exposed to the documents.

Rob