Subject: forwarded message from Bob Hanisch

From: [email-masked] (Don Wells)
Date: Mon, 23 Nov 92 13:45:54 EST

Dear WGAS FITS Committee (WFC),

I append the message from Bob Hanisch which officially announces the
formation of the WGAS FITS Committee and designates me as its Chair.
I am reposting it to the exploder "[email-masked]" in case there may be
some of you who do not read newsgroup sci.astro.fits (or its exploder
"[email-masked]") or the exploder "[email-masked]",
where Bob posted the announcement. The distribution list of exploder
"[email-masked]" is currently identical to the list of Email addresses
in Bob's message, and the exploder is operational. Administrative
(adds/drops/changes) traffic should be sent to "[email-masked]".

We will need to conduct formal votes on the three pending proposals
which are mentioned below. Any of you who are not yet familiar with
these proposals should fetch the relevant documents from one of the
archives (e.g., anonymousFTP archive fits.cv.nrao.edu [192.33.115.8]
in directory FITS/Documents). If any of you have questions or comments
on the proposals I suggest that you post them to this exploder, or
else to me ([email-masked]) privately. I expect that we will conduct
the formal voting procedure within the next 30 days, but I want to
allow the newcomers on WFC to read the documents and discuss them
before we begin the process. The European FITS Committee endorsed all
three proposals several months ago. If, as I expect, WFC also endorses
them, and the Japanese FITS Committee as well, they will be submitted
to the IAU FITS Working Group for the formal, final vote.

Regards,
Don

------- Start of forwarded message -------
Comment: AAS Working Group for Astronomical Software
Reply-To: <[email-masked]>
From: Bob Hanisch <[email-masked]>
To: Multiple recipients of list <[email-masked]>
Subject: WGAS FITS Committee (WFC)
Date: Mon, 23 Nov 92 10:43:57 -0500

To all members of the FITS community:

  As chair of the AAS Working Group on Astronomical Software I have appointed a
standing committee under the WGAS that will be the formal voting authority on
issues related to the FITS standard.  As many WGAS members know, in the past
our votes on FITS issues have been rather informal, including those WGAS
members who were able to attend our meetings during the summer AAS meeting.
The WGAS FITS Committee is analogous to the European and Japanese FITS
Committees, both of which have a formal voting membership.

  It is my intention to include all interested parties in the discussion of
FITS issues via the FITS newsgroup, WGAS meetings, ad hoc committees on
specific issues (e.g., the world coordinate systems that are now being
discussed), BoF sessions at the ADASS conferences, etc.  However, in order to
assure that all major data producing and data archiving institutions are
represented when issues come to a vote, the WFC has been constituted.  I have
tried to make sure that everyone is properly represented, but I would
appreciate it if people would bring to my attention any major omissions or
oversights.

  I have appointed Don Wells of NRAO as chair of this committee, and he will
organize the voting for the FITS proposals that are now before us (binary
tables extension, image extension, and agreement on FITS on media other than
9-track magnetic tape).

  Voting will be carried out by e-mail.  Approval of any issue will require at
least 13 positive votes.  In practice we will strive to work out any
substantive disagreements so that votes can be unanimous.

  The WGAS FITS Committee membership is attached below.

Bob Hanisch
Chair, AAS Working Group on Astronomical Software
[email-masked]

                   WGAS FITS Committee, November 1992

Don Wells, NRAO (Chair)			[email-masked]
Lee Brotzman, NSSDC 			[email-masked]
Dennis Crabtree, DAO/CADC		[email-masked]
Eric Greisen, NRAO			[email-masked]
Bob Hanisch, ST ScI (ex officio)	[email-masked]
Arne Henden, OSU			[email-masked]
William Lupton, Keck Obs.		[email-masked]
Eric Mandel, SAO			[email-masked]
Bob Narron, IPAC			[email-masked]
Bill Pence, HEASARC			[email-masked]
Jeff Percival, U.Wis.			[email-masked]
Skip Schaller, U.Ariz.			[email-masked]
Barry Schlesinger, NASA FITS Office	[email-masked]
Peter Teuben, U. Md.			[email-masked]
Doug Tody, NOAO				[email-masked]
Michael Van Steenberg 			[email-masked]
Archie Warnock, NSSDC			[email-masked]
Winifred Williams, NSO			[email-masked]

Preben Grosbol, ESO, IAU (non-voting)	[email-masked]

------- End of forwarded message -------

Donald C. Wells             Associate Scientist        [email-masked]
National Radio Astronomy Observatory                   +1-804-296-0277
520 Edgemont Road                                 Fax= +1-804-296-0278
Charlottesville, Virginia 22903-2475 USA            78:31.1W, 38:02.2N