[fitsbits] reopening of Public Comment Period on the Green Bank convention

[THIERRY FORVEILLE]

> On Wed, 25 May 2016, Tom McGlynn (NASA/GSFC Code 660.1) wrote:
> 
> > I am strongly opposed to adopting this convention within the FITS
> > standard although I think it is perfectly appropriate for projects to
> > use as they wish.
> 
> This should be exactly the sense of the proposed text. The Green Bank
> convention is already mentioned in the WCS papers, the WCS papers are part
> of the standard "per incorporation", and the proposed text NOW does
> nothing else that reporting a sentence from the WCS papers. So it simply
> reaffirms the status quo.
> 
> Therefore, unless more comments arise, I'd like to put it to a procedural
> vote in IAU FWG next week.
> 
Like Tom, I object to what seems to have become an implicit assumption that
incorporating a convention into the standard is a good thing, as long as it
has significant existing use. There are costs to extending the standard (unless,
as Tom also says, one accepts that everybody uses cfitsio), and those need to
be balanced against the benefits.