[fitsbits] [EXT] DOI for FITS standard document?

[Lucio Chiappetti]

Dear all (in particular Jessica Mink, Robert Seaman, Thierry Forveille 
and Malcolm Currie),

I apologize for the delay in reply while quarantined offline, I am now 
recovering the e-mail backlog and in particular this thread on DOI. I give 
a tentative collective reply to your points which I briefly summarize 
below.

On Tue, 14 Apr 2020, Jessica Mink via fitsbits wrote:

> The standard should be referenceable. Who or what would be the 
> appropriate agent to get the DOI? Its host? The IAU FITS Special Expert 
> Group?

On Tue, 14 Apr 2020, Seaman, Robert Lewis - (rseaman) via fitsbits wrote:

> Who has responsibility for this? If IAU Comm B2, a few of us remain on
> that OC (and IAU is wanting feedback about what we’ve been up to). If
> NASA FITS Support Office, who is the responsible party?

On Wed, 15 Apr 2020, THIERRY FORVEILLE via fitsbits wrote:

> I'd need to check with our publisher as they handle those aspects, but 
> (speaking as its editor in chief) A&A could most likely generate one if 
> desired, which would perhaps have some amount of justification since 
> previous versions of the standard were published as A&A papers.

On Wed, 15 Apr 2020, Malcolm J. Currie via fitsbits wrote:

> Glad that I'm not alone at losing track of which body in the IAU is now
> responsible for FITS.

> Yes a DOI would be welcome.  The hard part is finding who will curate 
> the Standard V4.0 (and possibly later versions).  These days a DOI 
> comeswith publication.  Is the current Standard significantly different 
> from the last published version that a journal would accept it?

> Does it really matter under which banner it would reside, as long as it 
> persisted for a long time to come?  The leading data curators in this 
> area would include CADC, CDS, HEASARC, and MAST.  Would these 
> organisations be happy to curate a document without data?

As far as I can see the IAU resolution endorsing FITS
https://fits.gsfc.nasa.gov/iaufwg/history/IAU_1988_resolution_b2.html
has never been revoked.

However the IAU FITS WG has never been made a "functional WG" (i.e. 
permanent) but has passed hands to the FITS SEG (a second-order 
subcommittee which I chair) of the IAU DRWG (chaired by Jessica Mink). 
While on one hand it is clear that current curation (in terms of possible 
updates) is in the hand of the FITS SEG, this has never been formally 
organized (e.g. in terms of getting an own web site) because of the 
uncertainties on its duration (and also I remind we should think of the 
"succession" ... since most of the members are getting older).

Concerning the 4.0 version of the standard its current official repository 
is at HEASARC https://fits.gsfc.nasa.gov/fits_standard.html. I would like 
to know if (the emeritus) Bill Pence, who originally set up the site, has 
any comment on this (particularly on long term maintenance).

Still concerning the 4.0 version, I am rather reluctant to consider it for 
a journal publication, since de facto it merges (though with adjustments 
and language editing) stuff mostly already published.

A 4.1 or 5.0 with substantial improvements would be a different story, but 
the discussion on long-name keywords, which we should resume, seems to 
indicate this is not an easy or fast task.

(but if Thierry could get a DOI without publication we should not discard 
this possibility)

I have no idea of the procedure to get a DOI for an "unpublished" document 
(although nowadays, with the phasing out of HARDCOPY publication, what 
does it mean exactly "published" ?), of how official should be the 
requestor of a DOI.

Ideally, if IAU (which is official enough, with 100 years of history and a 
membership of ICSU or whatever it is called now) would set up a site of 
its own for "IAU documents", I would say it should be some IAU 
representative to get the DOI.

Concerning the list of institutions by Malcolm, I would add IVOA. I am not 
sure of its standing w.r.t IAU, and whether it has got DOI for its own 
standards. Perhaps other people who are in both will know more.

As a fallback, since the current version is stored at The FITS Support 
Office at NASA/GSFC (HEASARC), maybe somebody there should/could take care 
of getting the DOI ?

That's all for the time being.

-- 
Lucio Chiappetti - INAF/IASF - via Corti 12 - I-20133 Milano (Italy)
For more info : http://www.iasf-milano.inaf.it/~lucio/personal.html
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