[fitswcs] Status of WCS negotiations

[Don Wells]

Patrick Wallace writes:
 > ..My current workload is such that I can't respond in detail to the flood
 > of messages right away.  Can we agree a timescale for all this (or
 > preferably organize a retreat somewhere where we can concentrate on
 > the problem for a few days)?..

I am sympathetic with your situation, Pat. For example, I may be
criticized by someone at NRAO for working on FITS-WCS rather than on
the GBT---I agreed to produce a GBT technical memorandum by last
Friday, and didn't do it because I decided to work on FITS instead.
Many of us on this little mailing list have multiple commitments.
Contribute whatever you can to the discussion, Pat. 

This is the vacation season, at least for Northern hemisphere folks. I
have been informed by another FITS-WCS old-timer that he is on
vacation, reviewing the traffic remotely, and will join the discussion
when he returns to his office.  I am sympathetic with his situation, too.

I restarted this WCS discussion a week ago because I do not have a
choice, as Chair of IAU-FWG. In 1984 at the Hague and in 1987 at
Kyoto, I told IAU Commission 5 that I would attempt to lead the FITS
community to agreements on WCS.  I will continue to try as long as I
am Chair.

In recent years the annual FITS session at ADASS has acted as our
annual public review of the state-of-FITS. It is going to be
embarrassing for me, and I think for many of you also, if we have to
admit, once again, that these negotiations are still stymied by
differences over fundamental points. I am reluctant to decide
technical issues for our universal standard by a voting process, but
if it becomes necessary in order to resolve differences of opinion,
then we must do it. My goal at the moment is to expose and review the
differences of opinion, in the hope that solid majority opinions will
gradually emerge and that minority opinions will gradually change or
acquiesce.  The timescale we have for this process is approximately
three months, August-September-October, before ADASS'98.

I see no choice but to continue talking. About half the subscribers on
this list are old-timers, some of whom have been debating these issues
for many years; about a third of the subscribers attended the
NASA-subsidized Charlottesville WCS workshop ten (!) years ago.  The
'fitswcs' subscriber list does include some new people and new
institutional representation. These new people need to understand the
old debates, to decide their own positions on the critical issues and
to begin to make their own contributions to this community effort. If
there are other people who should participate, please inform me. We
don't need people who just want to listen---we need designers and
builders and major users who have insights and specific requirements
which can help us to reach agreement. I believe that if the 'fitswcs'
subscribers can reach a WCS agreement the entire FITS community will
endorse that agreement.

-Don
-- 
  Donald C. Wells         Associate Scientist         dwells at nrao.edu
		    http://www.cv.nrao.edu/~dwells
  National Radio Astronomy Observatory                +1-804-296-0277
  520 Edgemont Road,   Charlottesville, Virginia       22903-2475 USA