[fitsbits] updates to the FITS standard document

[Mark Calabretta]

On Mon, 22 Jun 2015 10:16:41 -0400
Erik Bray <embray at stsci.edu> wrote:

Erik,

> I believe that the INHERIT keyword convention, in particular, is *not* familiar 
> to most users of FITS in large part because many readers ignore it, and it is 
> benign when ignored.

Given the context, I take it that you meant to say "malign" here,
rather than "benign".
 
> Suddenly requiring it to be interpreted would be very surprising to many users, 
> and even if support for it were implemented I anticipate "bug" reports from 
> users surprised that keywords that don't physically appear in some header are 
> suddenly showing up (somehow...the other problem with the INHERIT convention, as 
> documented, is that its interpretation by software is unspecified, which I 
> believe to be dangerous and user-hostile).
> 
> If I had a vote it would be "NO" on the INHERIT convention--the others I think 
> have better existing support in the community and are benign and/or 
> well-specified.  But I think this deserves more time for discussion.

Regards,
Mark Calabretta