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

[Lucio Chiappetti]

ANNOUNCEMENT:  START OF FORMAL PUBLIC COMMENT PERIOD

This is to announce the official start of a formal Public Comment Period 
on the incorporation of the CHECKSUM convention in the FITS Standard.

This is for the moment the last step of a process to incorporate the most 
useful, widely used, registered, and simple conventions (which are valid 
FITS constructs) into the official definition of the standard.

This convention defines the CHECKSUM and DATASUM keywords that may be used 
to verify the integrity of an HDU

The proposed text consists just

- in the ADDITION of a new section 4.4.2.8 (hilighted in magenta colour) 
  describing the two keywords

- in the addition of an Appendix (provisionally numbered J) describing
  a recommended algorithm

- in the insertion of relevant 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 
   W.Pence).

- If the proposal is approved a section H.3 will be added to Appendix H 
  describing the update, and the keywords will be listed in Appendix C
  (example shown)

- If both the CHECKSUM and tiled compression proposals are approved,
  cross references to CHECKSUM will be added where appropriate in section
  10 (compression). This is NOT shown.

The proposed draft text is available at 
http://sax.iasf-milano.inaf.it/~lucio/FITS/Conventions/checksum-upd3.pdf

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

For general considerations on the Public Comment Period, the IAUFEC review 
and background information on the FITS approval process please refer to 
the announcement of Public Comment Period for CONTINUE issued on Jun 19.

Please review the text carefully and post any comments, criticisms, or 
suggestions on the FITSBITS mailing list, separately for each convention. 
==================================================================

The Public Comment Period starts today 23 June 2015 and (unless an 
extension is called) will last until July 10 in order to conclude together 
with the other reviews in progress.

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