[fitsbits] start of Public Comment Period on compressed FITS image and tables

[Lucio Chiappetti]

ANNOUNCEMENT:  START OF FORMAL PUBLIC COMMENT PERIOD

This is to announce the official start of a 3-week formal Public Comment 
Period on the incorporation of the Tiled Image Compression and Tiled Table 
Compression conventions in the FITS Standard.

This is part of a process to incorporate the most useful and widely used 
registered conventions (which are valid FITS constructs) into the official 
definition of the standard.

Among these the two compression conventions benefit of a common handling. 
Given their relative complexity they are better discussed first, before 
other easier conventions.

The proposed text consists

- in the ADDITION of an entire new chapter (10)  to the FITS Standard
   Document which describes the two conventions in a common prescriptive
   framework.
- It also includes the ADDITION of a new non-prescriptive Appendix I,
- plus the addition of the necessary bibliographic references,

   and has been prepared by a technical team including L.Chiappetti,
   W.Pence, A.Dobrzycki, R.A.Shaw and W.Thompson (main editor Dick Shaw).

- If the proposal is approved also Appendix C will be updated listing the
   new keywords, and a section H.3 will be added to Appendix H describing
   the updates and the differences with the registered convention.

   All the updates are shown in blue colour in their current context (with
   the exception of the NEW chapter 10 which is black)

The proposed draft text is available at 
http://sax.iasf-milano.inaf.it/~lucio/FITS/Conventions/compression-upd2.pdf

Supporting material is provided in the FITS Convention Registry at the 
following URLs
http://fits.gsfc.nasa.gov/registry/tilecompression.html 
http://fits.gsfc.nasa.gov/registry/tiletablecompression.html

Considering that the convention(s) have been in use since several years, 
are legal FITS, were discussed on FITSBITS when the conventions were 
entered in the Registry and therefore their usage is well proven (also for 
what interoperability is concerned), the Public Comment Period is reduced 
to 3 weeks.

Also the review by FITS Working Group Executive can be speeded up and 
handled in parallel or quickly after the conclusion of the Public Comment 
Period.

Please review the text carefully and post any comments, criticisms, or 
suggestions on the FITSBITS mailing list (not on iauwfg or elsewhere) 
==================================================================

The Public Comment Period starts today 16 June 2015 and will last formally 
for 3 weeks until July 6

================================================================== 
Background information on the FITS approval process

Under the "Rules and Procedures" of the IAU FITS Working Group, 
http://fits.gsfc.nasa.gov/iaufwg/iaufwg_rules.html, the first step in the 
official approval process of any FITS proposal will be a formal Public 
Comment Period to take place on the FITSBITS mailing list. After that the 
IAU FITS Working Group Executive will review the results. Following that 
the IAU FITS Working Group will then conduct a final vote to approve or 
disapprove the proposal.

-- 
Lucio Chiappetti - INAF/IASF - via Bassini 15 - I-20133 Milano (Italy)
Current IAU FWG chair