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

[THIERRY FORVEILLE]

> 
> The paragraph of descriptive text about the Green Bank convention
> (http://sax.iasf-milano.inaf.it/~lucio/FITS/Conventions/greenbank-rev2.pdf)
> comes *verbatim* from the first World Coordinate System paper published
> by Greisen and Calibretta in 2002.  The IAU FITS Working Group voted
> unanimously to approve this paper in December 2002, so this text has
> been officially part of the FITS standard for more than 15 years.  It is
> a bit late to raise objections to this now.
> 
My (potential) objection is to inclusion in the main body standard. I am 
perfectly fine with the GB convention as a convention, documented in
an appendix.

> This Green Bank convention was one of the primary agreements reached at
> an important meeting to discuss standard FITS formats for the
> interchange of single dish radio astronomy data held at Green Bank in
> 1989.  I think it is fair to say that this agreement was historically
> significant in promoting FITS as the standard format for astronomical
> data.  Thus I think it is entirely appropriate to now recognize and
> document the Green Bank convention in the FITS standard document itself,
> for the benefit of future researchers.
> 
As a participant in the Green Bank meeting and as the author of one of 
the two original conforming implementations of the convention, I am well
aware of its history and merits :-) Whether those justify its becoming
part of the standard itself nonetheless still needs arguing.