The flexible interchange transport system (FITS) file format has become the de facto standard for sharing, analyzing, and archiving astronomical data over the last four decades. FITS was adopted by astronomers in the early 1980s to overcome incompatibilities between operating systems. On the back of FITS’ success, astronomical data became both backward compatible and easily shareable. However, new advances in the astronomical instrumentation, computational technologies, and analytic techniques have resulted in new data that do not work well within the traditional FITS format. Tensions have arisen between the desire to update the format to meet new analytic challenges and adherence to the original edict for the FITS file format to be backward compatible. We examine three inflection points in the governance of FITS: first, initial development and success, second, widespread acceptance and governance by the working group, and third, the challenges to FITS in a new era of increasing data and computational complexity within astronomy.

中文翻译：

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一次适合，永远适合？转型中的天文基础设施

在过去的四年中，灵活的交换传输系统 (FITS) 文件格式已成为共享、分析和存档天文数据的事实上的标准。FITS 在 1980 年代初被天文学家采用，以克服操作系统之间的不兼容性。在 FITS 成功的背后，天文数据变得既向后兼容又易于共享。然而，天文仪器、计算技术和分析技术的新进展导致新数据在传统 FITS 格式中无法正常工作。在更新格式以应对新的分析挑战的愿望与遵守 FITS 文件格式向后兼容的原始法令之间产生了紧张关系。我们考察了 FITS 治理中的三个拐点：第一，