[fitsbits] start of Public Comment Period on the INHERIT convention

[THIERRY FORVEILLE]

> > If the metadata pertain to the data in the table, the metadata should
> > indeed be
> > in the table header.  Why on earth would you put them in the primary
> > header?
> 
> Because that's where people expect to find information about the file as a
> whole, information such as what instrument took these data, what object was
> observed, what was the start and stop time of the observation, what was the
> observing sequence run, whether this observation was part of a joint
> observing
> program, etc.  Requiring people to drill down into the extensions to extract
> this kind of general metadata would not be taken kindly.
> 
Some people seem to expect that information in the primary header, but that 
_really_ depends where you come from. My own expectation is to find it
next to the data in the extension header, while the primary HDU merely
seen as a mostly harmless small wart that historical reasons force us 
to keep around.