[fitsbits] start of Public Comment Period on blank header space convention

[Peter Weilbacher]

On Fri, 19 Jun 2015, Lucio Chiappetti wrote:

> 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 so called "blank header space" convention
> in the FITS Standard.

Initially I had my doubts if this was useful at all. But after the
comments on this list, I think it can be put to nice use. However, this
sentence

   For this reason it is recommended that this convention only
   be used within a controlled processing environment where the
   software is known to support it.

at the end of the current proposal does not make sense.

Either, the convention (it's rather a processing trick than a
convention, right?) is only used in such a controlled environment. Then
one does not need a convention at all, because the software involved
already knows this trick, and can write additional blank space whenever
writing large files to disk.

Or one has this convention in the standard and actually recommends FITS
readers to not remove such space (if already present).

   Peter.
-- 
Dr Peter Weilbacher                 http://www.aip.de/People/PWeilbacher
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