[wfc] Results of WFC Vote on WCS-III

[Arnold Rots]

This is the official announcement of the tally of the WGAS FITS
Committee (North American FITS Committee) vote on WCS Paper III.

Yes:     15
No:       0
Abstain:  1
no vote:  0

Total number of votes cast: 16
Voting membership of WFC:   16

The proposal has been approved by the WFC.


However, support was not as resounding and enthusiastic as in the past
and there were a few reservation expressed by committee members on the
proposal, even though these were not considered sufficient grounds for
a negative vote; I would like to pass these comments on to the IAUFWG:

  With some hesitation, I vote YES on WCS Paper 3.
  I continue to have some reservations about the maturity of the
  -TAB part of the proposal and hope it will be more widely deployed
  in software by the time the IAU votes. In particular, I find -TAB's
  use with coordinate systems in binary tables rather confusing still.

  There is no question that this is a major resource for helping people
  to understand spectral WCS.  One could wish the interface were better
  structured so that the simple cases are simpler, but so long as it
  works we should probably declare victory.

  We need this proposal, but I keep my fingers crossed that the -TAB
  component will be up to the task it is supposed to perform.  It
  probably will, but the case has not been made to the degree that I
  would have liked to see.


Cheers,

  - Arnold Rots
    Chair WFC

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Arnold H. Rots                                Chandra X-ray Science Center
Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory                tel:  +1 617 496 7701
60 Garden Street, MS 67                              fax:  +1 617 495 7356
Cambridge, MA 02138                             arots at head.cfa.harvard.edu
USA                                     http://hea-www.harvard.edu/~arots/
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