Thus, I recommend that the FITS Working Group be placed directly under the IAU Executive Committee. Thus, the FITS WG should be maintained with its present mandate. It is not clear to me how this issue could be resolved. The schedule for meetings related to Commission 5 is listed below. As you can see two sessions has direct connection to the FITS WG namely, the business session on 18.8 and the FITS session on 23.8.
Any suggestions are of course also very welcome.
The FITS format is used world wide for transport and archiving of astronomical data. To ensure full readability of data over a time scale of many decades, long term stability and compatibility of the format are essential. Thus, it is important that the IAU is in full control of the definition of the FITS format. The review process of any change must be tightly controlled. The FITS Working Group has already implemented official review and voting procedures.