[fitswcs] Re: WCS activity

[Mark Calabretta]

On Thu 2001/06/07 12:05:53 -0400, Don Wells wrote
in a message to: Steve Allen <sla at ucolick.org>
and copied to: Eric Greisen <egreisen at NRAO.EDU>,
      Mark Calabretta <Mark.Calabretta at atnf.CSIRO.AU>,
      Ernst Raimond <exr at nfra.nl>, Peter Teuben <teuben at astro.umd.edu>,
      Preben Grosbol <pgrosbol at eso.org>,
      Osamu Kanamitsu <kanamitu at fukuoka-edu.ac.jp>,
      Patrick Wallace <ptw at star.rl.ac.uk>,
      William Pence <pence at tetra.gsfc.nasa.gov>, "Doug Tody" <tody at noao.edu>,
      "Lindsey Davis" <davis at noao.edu>, "Frank Valdes" <valdes at noao.edu>

>Only one group of astronomical software people had anything to say to
>me on the relationship of WCS-I to WCS-III.5; this was the IRAF group
>at NOAO.  I began communicating with them privately regarding
>WCS-III.5 and other WCS issues. I said nothing publicly because other
>FITS people seemed unconcerned about the WCS-III.5 issue.  Also, it
>was clear to me that we needed some new ideas, and that the creation
>of those ideas would be most likely to occur in a private discussion
>context.  This is why I have been publicly silent for many months.

Don,

When you say "said nothing publicly" it must be stated that neither Eric nor
I knew anything of this group, or their objections or these discussions.

We called time and again for people to evaluate the proposal and respond if
they found it to be lacking for their instruments.  In fact, the first few
drafts of paper III explicitly called for examples of instruments for which
coordinate description would be difficult.  Members of the NOAO group were
present at the 1999 ADASS FITS BoF and certainly knew about the papers and
our requests for feedback, yet we heard nothing from them.  They also knew
that the BoF voted to promote the papers past the general discussion stage
to ratification by the regional committees.

Since our enquiries to you about WCS progress have gone unanswered, Eric and
I recently instituted private enquiries to the chairmen of the regional FITS
committees.  These have shown that there has been little or no activity among
the regional committees or elsewhere.  Certainly, the North American
committee is not involved in the NOAO discussions, nor, it seems, do the
European or Japanese committees even know about them.  As far as due process
is concerned, this is where the activity is supposed to be taking place now.

Mark Calabretta
ATNF