- tz - lists.iana.org

Time Zone question
by Dodhiawala, Rajendra Feb. 15, 2000

Feb. 15, 2000

I have looked at various resources for Time Zone data and found your tzcode, tzdata files to be most useful. Unfortunately, there is one piece of information I have not be able to locate on any of the TimeZone-related resources on the Internet: - What is a good way to display time such that TZ info is absolutely clear. ISO 8601 falls short of this. For example, YYYY-MM-DDTHH:mm:ss-08:00 is insufficient because -08:00 is -07:00 in the summer and thus indistinguishable from Arizona which also uses -07:00. Adding the timezone makes sense, as in YYYY-MM-DDTHH:mm:ss-07:00PST Is there any standard for this or precedence on how this is handled in current (popular?) operating systems. Any other pointers? Finally, is there any program/script (for Linux, for example) that will display all the abbreviations based on the rules in the zone.tab and continent files? Just the most recent abbreviation will do. Such a program would eliminate errors when manually extracting zone abbreviations. Appreciate your response, --Raj

1 0

History of time in the UK
by Joseph S. Myers Feb. 12, 2000

Feb. 12, 2000

I have attempted to turn the historical information on time in the UK, given in the europe file, into a web page, which may now be found at http://student.cusu.cam.ac.uk/~jsm28/british-time/ For the most part the information content is similar to that in the europe file. However, I have attempted to include long titles and date for all Acts and Orders; details of those Channel Islands laws I have are included; this history has been prepared with reference to copies of all 80 laws covered; I have attempted to clearly enumerate the probable gaps; I have tried to indicate exactly what was stated and covered by each law, and what powers were used; those orders that cannot be found simply by reference to the annual published volumes are indicated as such; the occasions of a start on Easter Day have been noted as such. Some commentary from the europe file is not included. Additional to those laws listed in the europe file: S.R.&O. 1921 No. 1276 (defining termination of WW1). More careful details of what was happening under what powers in 1922. tz's behaviour is correct, the comments misleading. Expiring Laws Continuance Act (Northern Ireland), 1923. The main Expiring Laws Continuance Act, 1923 did not cover extending the Summer Time Act, 1922's validity in Northern Ireland. Emergency Powers (Defence) Acts, 1939 and 1940 - more details. Interpretation Act (Northern Ireland), 1954 - account of actual effect from reference to the Act. British Standard Time Act, 1968 - new analysis of the time at which it came into effect (subject to proper verification when the relevant files enter the Public Record Office and are opened under the 30 year rule, in 2002 or so). Details of repeals, and what laws revived on its expiry, with what amendment. Summer Time Act 1972 - this consolidated previous laws without substantive changes. The changes dates already applied on expiry of the 1968 Act. Interpretation Act 1978 - _does_ apply to Northern Ireland. Application of modern orders to Isle of Man and Channel Islands - wording quoted for 1994 starts in 1980. European directives and their implementation - some require different end dates for UK and Ireland, others permit them. The 8th directive is available online. -- Joseph S. Myers jsm28(a)cam.ac.uk

1 0

TZ web page: not effortless
by Oscar van Vlijmen Feb. 12, 2000

Feb. 12, 2000

Following the thought given by Paul Eggert (Feb. 10): "But is it worth our time to do, given that we'd be duplicating other people's efforts?" I would like to add: Looking around, for instance at: http://sandbox.xerox.com/stewart/tzconvert.cgi - update: tzdata1999e http://www.timezoneconverter.com/ - update: Oct. 13 1999 http://www.burbs.com/fcgi-bin/tzconvert.fcgi - update: Nov. 15 1998 http://www.bsdi.com/date - update: periodically; seems reasonably up to date but still not tzdata2000a http://www.hilink.com.au/times/ - update: unknown; seems not very up to date (e.g. Tonga) http://www.timeanddate.com/ - update: tzdata2000a ? it can be noticed that it appears very difficult to maintain an up to date timezone converter. At the moment Steffen Thorsen of timeanddate.com spends between 5 and 10 hours weekly maintaining and evolving his site, which is in existence since 1995 (source: http://www.timeanddate.com/steffen/) Very impressive, but for how long from now? Keep in mind that the Olson effort (tzcode & tzdata) exists since 1986. If someone can guarantee that he or she can find the time, energy and resources to maintain for many years an up to date TZ web application, then go ahead. If possible, as Gwillim Law noted Feb. 8, including all historical data. If it cannot be guaranteed that with each tzdata update the web application gets updated too, it could be wise to forget this idea. Don't even bother to produce long lists of time-related (and calendar-related) web links; there are many more and some very good ones at the moment, and it takes a lot of time to keep those lists up to date. My general idea is: without long-term updating guarantees: just stay with a passive web page, promoting the merits of tzcode & tzdata and the "private investigation" services. For the moment, an extra impact should be gained from submitting tz-link.htm to search engines and keepers of lists with time/calendar info. Oscar van Vlijmen 2000-02-11

3 2

Re: Web page idea
by Paul Eggert Feb. 10, 2000

Feb. 10, 2000

From: "Eric Ulevik" <eau(a)ozemail.com.au> Date: Wed, 9 Feb 2000 00:41:32 +1100 The web page could include direct links to the latest version of tzcode and tzdata, and a web-based interface for looking up the current local time around the world. I know of four sites that do this now. Paul Stewart's "Timezone Converter" <http://sandbox.xerox.com/stewart/tzconvert.cgi> publishes the source code, so it wouldn't be hard to clone, if we could find someone who wanted to host it. But is it worth our time to do, given that we'd be duplicating other people's efforts?

2 1

RE: What's in a name?
by Law, Gwil Jr. Feb. 8, 2000

Feb. 8, 2000

Eric Ulevik [eau(a)ozemail.com.au] wrote: [EU]>From: "Oscar van Vlijmen" <o.van.vlijmen(a)tip.nl> [OvV]>> About the naming of the TZ timezone database. This discussion appears to be searching for a name that will give the general public an idea of what we're doing. If, as I believe, the Olson archive is the most complete and accurate collection of historical time zone data in the world (possibly excepting the Shanks atlases), there are a lot of people who should know about it...not just Unix techies. To the general public, "zoneinfo" is not self-explanatory. There are too many types of zone. I think the name selected should contain either "timezone", "time zone", or "tz". [OvV]>> The main issue was: more visible webpresentation. The host of the "official" site of the tz mailing list should know how to get ranked high by search engines. [EU]>For impact, the main web page must be short and to the point. It should offer a very user-friendly interface to the tzdata archive. At <http://www1.tip.nl/~t876506/DSTtable.html>, Oscar van Vlijmen's new page is a good start. The next step would be to open up the full range of historical data. An advantage to having a highly visible Web site is that we would get more updates and error reports from well-informed laymen. The webmaster would have to spend a good deal of time processing those messages. Who volunteers to be webmaster? [EU]>I'd be happy to do some of the editing if someone can host the site. I infer that you're not willing or able to host it. I can modestly offer some of my space on Mindspring. See my page <http://www.mindspring.com/~gwil/statoids.html> to get an idea of what's there. When I say "modestly", I mean that Paul Eggert's existing site at <http://www.twinsun.com/tz/tz-link.htm> would be a much more logical choice if Paul wants to take on this responsibility. I could set aside about four megabytes for time zone info. As a proof of my bona fides, I've contributed quite a bit of IATA time zone data to Paul Eggert since about 1996. By the way, I've resolved to keep my Web site as noncommercial as possible. As I see it, the tz Web site would be edited in the same way as the tz archive. A moderator (presumably the webmaster) would try to achieve a consensus among the contributors, and would then post the results. Yours, Gwillim Law

1 0

What's in a name?
by Oscar van Vlijmen Feb. 8, 2000

Feb. 8, 2000

About the naming of the TZ timezone database. Let's not forget the main issue. The program and data files themselves should not be renamed. Computer programs could have dependencies by name and computer users are accustomed to certain commands, command-line parameters etcetera. The main issue was: more visible webpresentation. ADO asked Jan. 11 if it wouldn't be useful to merge the tzcode & tzdata. I replied Jan. 11 with amongst other suggestions: "An even more useful suggestion would be to place the WWW.htm file in the directory ftp://elsie.nci.nih.gov/pub/ Why don't you advocate your/our work through a web page? Submit this page to several search engines, I would suggest." The fist step has been made; cf.: http://www.twinsun.com/tz/tz-link.htm Let's think now about even more impact on the web. Finding a catchy or unique name of the stuff is only a small part of this undertaking. Oscar van Vlijmen 2000-02-08

1 0

Wachamacallit again
by Oscar van Vlijmen Feb. 8, 2000

Feb. 8, 2000

In reply to the reply from Paul Hill: > I thought it already had a name. It is named after how it is seen on > a Unix system. As http://www.twinsun.com/tz/tz-link.htm says in the > opening paragraph it is "often called zoneinfo", but that doesn't stop > it from being renamed. AltaVista gives 8246 hits when looking for 'zoneinfo'. It is probably wise to rename the database or the web presentation of it, if you want to get a reasonable high ranking and findability. Oscar van Vlijmen 2000-02-07

3 2

Whachamacallit
by Oscar van Vlijmen Feb. 7, 2000

Feb. 7, 2000

Indeed, Eric Ulevik: a catching name for the TZ database seems useful. AltaVista gives however 29 hits with 'tzdb', half of which are Chinese pages and probably due to a Tzdb site (http://202.96.137.66/dzbk/tzdb/tzdb.htm) AltaVista gives 57 hits with 'Olson database', mostly due to RFC 2445 copies. AltaVista gives 174 hits with 'timezone-database'. AltaVista gives no hits with tz-database. Probably tz-database is a useful name. The tz-link.htm webpage should get at least two META tags, describing the contents in order to get registered correctly with most search engines; like this: <meta name="description" content="....."> <meta name="keywords" content="....."> Regards, Oscar van Vlijmen 2000-02-07

2 1

Reference for tz?
by Joseph S. Myers Feb. 5, 2000

Feb. 5, 2000

The recent appearence of a new way to refer to the tz database - `government database' - caused me to wonder: is there any reference that is appropriate to cite when referring to the tz code and data? That is: since there isn't anything much in the way of a web page for the project, has there ever been any form of publication (academic paper, memo, ...), even a long time ago, describing the project/code/data? -- Joseph S. Myers jsm28(a)cam.ac.uk

2 1

Re: New Mail List - timezones.external@software.com
by Paul Eggert Feb. 4, 2000

Feb. 4, 2000

From: Doug Royer [SMTP:doug@home.royer.com] Sent: Thursday, February 03, 2000 6:47 PM The timezones.external(a)software.com list is for public discussion of timezone information. How does that mailing list's charter differ from that of tz(a)elsie.nci.nih.gov, which is a list for public discussion of time zone information that has been in use since 1986? I visited www.software.com, but found no discussion of the new list. How does one join, or view its message archive? IANA as part of the IETF is looking into administrating the names of world wide time zones. How and why will this administration differ from the process already in place for the existing time zone database? 1) Port the government database and 'zic' (Zone Information Compiler) to other OS's and have it also provide the data in VTIMEZONE format. Most UNIX's use the government database format and the zic compiler (man zic). On 1998-07-16 Antoine Leca <Antoine.Leca(a)renault.fr> wrote that he was implementing (1); you might ask him how far he got. 2) Convert the government database into VTIMEZONE records for IANA to administer. Isn't conversion automatic? If so, why would two databases need to be administered separately? One database should be generated automatically from the other. And if someone want to volunteer - make a converter to go from VTIMEZONE format to zic input format to keep the databases in sync. Why would this be necessary, if conversion is automatic? FYI, here is a brief summary of existing sources for time zone data: http://www.twinsun.com/tz/tz-link.htm And here is a copy of the tz mailing list archive: ftp://elsie.nci.nih.gov/pub/tzarchive.gz

5 5

Re: New Mail List - timezones.external@software.com
by Doug Royer Feb. 4, 2000

Feb. 4, 2000

It is very important that when scheduling across timezones that users across those time zones use the same time zone definitions. FYI: The biggest OS and application vendors on Microsoft and UNIX have applications out -now- that understand VTIMEZONE. This includes Outlook, Lotus Notes, Netscape Calendar, Sun, and the list goes on. Oracle is active as are other database vendors. iCalendar and VTIMEZONE have been in the works for years. There are also many other vendors coming up now on the internet that are supporting this format. It would be a little less critical if the data was a month or two out of date. Each side if using VTIMEZONE, would know when it was going to happen. I could write a batch job that woke up once a week to see if the Olson database had changed, if it had, run the converter to VTIMEZONE and send IANA email. I think that IANA could also do this without my help. -Doug > From: CHancuff(a)aol.com > Date: Fri, 4 Feb 2000 14:18:03 EST > > In a message dated 2/4/00 9:48:42 AM Eastern Standard Time, > Markus.Kuhn(a)cl.cam.ac.uk writes: > > > It is much less likely that the respective countries will report > > timezone changes directly to IANA officially. > > I may be the very least qualified on this mailing list to comment > (since the only other time I've posted concerned my intense > interest in discovering the time zone observed by an island > which spends 6 months/year underwater) but ... > > I can see the advantage of having a web presence to which > reports, rumors, and hearsay can also be reported, then brought > to this list for scrutiny. Perhaps a form page, where such things > can be entered. > > I'm trying to imagine the "signal to noise" ratio of a central > reporting venue like this one, but I can't. It might be worth a try. > > Cliff Hancuff > www.ClearDaySoftware.com -Doug ------------------------------------------------------------------- Doug(a)Royer.COM http://royer.com/People/Doug Text Pager: pager(a)Royer.com 801 W. El Camino #131 Mountain View, CA 94040 Ham Radio: N6AAW, Aviation: PP-ASEL

1 0

Re: New Mail List - timezones.external@software.com
by CHancuff＠aol.com Feb. 4, 2000

Feb. 4, 2000

In a message dated 2/4/00 9:48:42 AM Eastern Standard Time, Markus.Kuhn(a)cl.cam.ac.uk writes: > It is much less likely that the respective countries will report > timezone changes directly to IANA officially. I may be the very least qualified on this mailing list to comment (since the only other time I've posted concerned my intense interest in discovering the time zone observed by an island which spends 6 months/year underwater) but ... I can see the advantage of having a web presence to which reports, rumors, and hearsay can also be reported, then brought to this list for scrutiny. Perhaps a form page, where such things can be entered. I'm trying to imagine the "signal to noise" ratio of a central reporting venue like this one, but I can't. It might be worth a try. Cliff Hancuff www.ClearDaySoftware.com

1 0

Re: New Mail List - timezones.external@software.com
by Doug Royer Feb. 4, 2000

Feb. 4, 2000

> Date: Fri, 04 Feb 2000 18:22:20 +0000 > From: Markus Kuhn <Markus.Kuhn(a)cl.cam.ac.uk> > > .. > > The basic idea seemed to have been quite agreeable, but in the end there > simply wasn't anyone volunteering to handle the bureaucracy necessary to > set up such a small institution. If two or three industrial sponsors > would come forward to cover the in the end surely quite marginal running > costs of such a small organization, I am sure it would be possible to > set up a suitable quotable but not quite sueable body. > > Publishing a single-page ISO standard that designates the named > organization to be the keeper of the ISO 16xyz time zone database would > surely sprinkle sufficient official magic around the entire thing to > keep even hard-line bureaucrats happy. Any reason it can't be IANA? We need to have a VTIMEZONE converter. I do NOT think it is important if the source is ZIC format and converted to VTIMEZONE on demand. -Doug ------------------------------------------------------------------- Doug(a)Royer.COM http://royer.com/People/Doug Text Pager: pager(a)Royer.com 801 W. El Camino #131 Mountain View, CA 94040 Ham Radio: N6AAW, Aviation: PP-ASEL

1 0

FW: [Fwd: New Mail List - timezones.external@software.com]
by Olson, Arthur David (NCI) Feb. 4, 2000

Feb. 4, 2000

Note that Doug Royer is not on the time zone mailing list; be sure to direct any replies appropriately. --ado -----Original Message----- From: Doug Royer [SMTP:doug@home.royer.com] Sent: Thursday, February 03, 2000 6:47 PM To: ietf-calendar(a)imc.org; tz(a)elsie.nci.nih.gov Subject: [Fwd: New Mail List - timezones.external(a)software.com] The timezones.external(a)software.com list is for public discussion of timezone information. IANA as part of the IETF is looking into administrating the names of world wide time zones. This list will be an alias of IETF and non-IETF participants interested in porting the 'zic' software and its data format. There are three goals of this list. 1) Port the government database and 'zic' (Zone Information Compiler) to other OS's and have it also provide the data in VTIMEZONE format. Most UNIX's use the government database format and the zic compiler (man zic). 2) Convert the government database into VTIMEZONE records for IANA to administer. 3) Give away the results to the public domain. And if someone want to volunteer - make a converter to go from VTIMEZONE format to zic input format to keep the databases in sync. This list will go away after the above 3 these goals have been met. RFC-2445 defines VTIMEZONE. The government database source, zic source, and other related source is available from: ftp://elsie.nci.nih.gov/pub ----------------------------------------------------------------- To subscribe, send mail to timezones.external-request(a)software.com with 'subscribe' in the body of the message. ----------------------------------------------------------------- <<Card for Doug Royer>>

4 4

Re: New Mail List - timezones.external@software.com
by Doug Royer Feb. 4, 2000

Feb. 4, 2000

> Date: Fri, 04 Feb 2000 11:28:31 -0500 > From: David Madeo <David.Madeo(a)msdw.com> > I won't speak for Doug, but I believe he intended to leverage the tz > mailing list and the packaged updates, but use the IANA as the > "official" repository for standards to reference. .... Yes - and the new list only purpose is to make the tool that converts from the ZIC format to RFC-2445 format. Then the new list will go away. -Doug ------------------------------------------------------------------- Doug(a)Royer.COM http://royer.com/People/Doug Text Pager: pager(a)Royer.com 801 W. El Camino #131 Mountain View, CA 94040 Ham Radio: N6AAW, Aviation: PP-ASEL

1 0

Re: New Mail List - timezones.external@software.com
by Doug Royer Feb. 4, 2000

Feb. 4, 2000

> To: tz(a)elsie.nci.nih.gov, ietf-calendar(a)imc.org > Cc: Doug Royer <doug(a)home.royer.com> > Subject: Re: New Mail List - timezones.external(a)software.com > X-URL: http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~mgk25/ > Date: Fri, 04 Feb 2000 14:47:22 +0000 > From: Markus Kuhn <Markus.Kuhn(a)cl.cam.ac.uk> > > Doug Royer <doug(a)home.royer.com>: > > There are three goals of this list. > > > > 1) Port the government database and 'zic' (Zone Information Compiler) > > to other OS's and have it also provide the data in VTIMEZONE > > format. Most UNIX's use the government database format and the zic > > compiler (man zic). > > > > 2) Convert the government database into VTIMEZONE records for IANA > > to administer. > > > > 3) Give away the results to the public domain. > > There might be a few misunderstandings involved here. First, there is no > "government timezone database". What you see on ftp://elsie.nci.nih.gov/pub/ > is the collaboration of a number of volunteers (Arthur Olson, Paul > Eggert, et al.), the result of which is commonly referred to as the > public domain "Olson database". The only relation to the US government > is that the group has been using an ftp server of the National Cancer > Institute, which happens to be located in the .gov domain. Thanks - I did not know what to call it :-) IANA has stepped up to doing this on the internet. There is now a international agreed way to represent timezones on the internet. And several large vendors (Microsoft, Sun, DEC, HP, IBM, ...) have agreed to use this format for calendar data. The EUC wants this format, as does the US internet community. > There exists already a well-established mailing list for discussions > on time zones and the maintenance of the Olson database, namely This list is for converting the data into RFC-2445 format, not for the discussion of timezones. We plan to use the Olson database to create the VTIMZONE data. Then IANA will keep the data. Several countries want an 'official' database, and IANA is where it is going to be kept. > tz(a)elsie.nci.nih.gov > > Contact > > tz-request(a)elsie.nci.nih.go > > to join the club. > > Since there is a lot of accumulated expertise on this mailing list, > handing over the administration of the database to IANA seems to be a > rather dubious buerocratic effort. Who at IANA would take over authority > over the database and is really comparably qualified to the current > contributors of the Olson database who have done a splendid job for > the last 15 years? Yes it has, not quite the same job however. We spent about 5 years coming to agreement on a way to represent this information on the internet. IANA is NOT going to be the source of the information. IANA is going to be the official outlet for the information in the agreed on format. > Please understand that IANA is a registration service, while what the > group around Olson is doing is more a detective service that observes > and documents the highly complicated world of national and regional > decisions about time-zone changes in the world. If government X is going > to change its local time zone, it is more likely that the database > maintainer will hear about this from various informers or media reports > around the world, as well as resources such as IATA or CIA. It is much > less likely that the respective countries will report timezone changes > directly to IANA officially. A detective service can provide a more > accurate representation of the real world than a registration service. And I suspect those tasks will remain separate. IANA is going to keep the VTIMEZONE format. It will be the internet standard way to get the data. Two public domain efforts (Java and C++) are being written now to process calendar and scheduling information. And VTIMEZONE will within a year be the official standard format that internet applications will be using to exchange time related information across time zones. > Just dropping the maintenance of the time zone database into the > responsibility of IANA might give them a task they underestimate at the > moment. IANA is going to keep the VTIMEZONE data. *MANY* vendors want an internet ready version of the data. I suspect in the not to distant future there will be timezone servers, where with the help of the tz(a)elsie.nci.nih.gov list and the Olson database companies can get timezone information, applications will have one standard way to exchange information when doing calendaring an scheduling. An internet application can then use an URL, (Possible) example: TZ://www.iana.org/vtimezone/US/Pacific Or maybe (I am not an HTTP expert) something like: TZ://www/iana.mirror.../vtimezone/lat?...,lon=? > If you don't like the current zic format, feel free to add a zic-> > VTIMEZONE format converter to the Olson package. Looks mostly like a > bijective transform to me, except that the zic input files contain a lot > of valuable comments that identify official reference documents. A ZIC -> VTIMEZONE converter is the primary goal of this new list. Once the goals are accomplished, this new list will go away. Again, I don't see the ZIC format going away. > Only if the output of that converter on the regular updates of the Olson > package turns out to be unsatisfactory, I would start worrying about > setting up a parallel bureaucracy and an independent database. I see > really no need for yet another mailing list. It's happening to write data to convert to VTIMEZONE. Then this new list will go away. > > RFC-2445 defines VTIMEZONE. > > BEGIN:VTIMEZONE > TZID:US--Fictitious-Eastern > LAST-MODIFIED:19870101T000000Z > BEGIN:STANDARD > DTSTART:19671029T020000 > RRULE:FREQ=YEARLY;BYDAY=-1SU;BYMONTH=10 > TZOFFSETFROM:-0400 > TZOFFSETTO:-0500 > TZNAME:EST > END:STANDARD > BEGIN:DAYLIGHT > DTSTART:19870405T020000 > RRULE:FREQ=YEARLY;BYDAY=1SU;BYMONTH=4;UNTIL=19980404T070000Z > TZOFFSETFROM:-0500 > TZOFFSETTO:-0400 > TZNAME:EDT > END:DAYLIGHT > BEGIN:DAYLIGHT > DTSTART:19990424T020000 > RRULE:FREQ=YEARLY;BYDAY=-1SU;BYMONTH=4 > TZOFFSETFROM:-0500 > TZOFFSETTO:-0400 > TZNAME:EDT > END:DAYLIGHT > END:VTIMEZONE > > If people really think that this looks that much nicer or easier to > parse for machines and humans ... Please join the IETF mailing list ietf-calendar(a)imc.org . Send requests to join to ietf-calendar-request(a)imc.org . It is already in 'proposed standard' state. It would take a LOT of work to change that format at this time. It can be for technical reasons. If you feel there are some PLEASE comment on the list. -Doug ------------------------------------------------------------------- Doug(a)Royer.COM http://royer.com/People/Doug Text Pager: pager(a)Royer.com 801 W. El Camino #131 Mountain View, CA 94040 Ham Radio: N6AAW, Aviation: PP-ASEL

1 0

[Fwd: New Mail List - timezones.external@software.com]
by Doug Royer Feb. 3, 2000

Feb. 3, 2000

The timezones.external(a)software.com list is for public discussion of timezone information. IANA as part of the IETF is looking into administrating the names of world wide time zones. This list will be an alias of IETF and non-IETF participants interested in porting the 'zic' software and its data format. There are three goals of this list. 1) Port the government database and 'zic' (Zone Information Compiler) to other OS's and have it also provide the data in VTIMEZONE format. Most UNIX's use the government database format and the zic compiler (man zic). 2) Convert the government database into VTIMEZONE records for IANA to administer. 3) Give away the results to the public domain. And if someone want to volunteer - make a converter to go from VTIMEZONE format to zic input format to keep the databases in sync. This list will go away after the above 3 these goals have been met. RFC-2445 defines VTIMEZONE. The government database source, zic source, and other related source is available from: ftp://elsie.nci.nih.gov/pub ----------------------------------------------------------------- To subscribe, send mail to timezones.external-request(a)software.com with 'subscribe' in the body of the message. -----------------------------------------------------------------

1 0

Re: DST start/end comments
by Oscar van Vlijmen Jan. 31, 2000

Jan. 31, 2000

Jesper, Thanks for your email with several comments on, well, let's say the art of being up to date. My DST start/end list has been compiled from the tzdata2000a data, with the aid of a Macintosh HyperCard application I developed recently. I intend to follow the _published tzdata_ closely, even if somebody on the tz-mailing list tells that there could be something wrong. As fas as I can guess, it is up to Paul Eggert to make decisions about all new information and proposals and up to Arthur Olson to produce new tzcode and tzdata files. This process takes a while. The Australia data is in study and confirmation has been asked; cf. Paul's email to Margaret Turner, Jan. 22. I am following time zone information on the Internet for several years and I have found that the tzdata information seems to be the most up to date and the most accurate. Probably not 100% accurate, but consistently the most up to date and the most accurate. There are many web pages in existence which use the tzdata information themselves, but I have found that in many cases they do not use the latest information. I looked today at timezoneconverter.com and I had the impression that they are using the tzdata1999h information from October 1999 (http://www.timezoneconverter.com/tzchist.html) The site of Steffen Thorsen (http://www.timeanddate.com) deserves to be listed on the tz-link.htm page. On his credits page he writes: "These are resources available on the net, which has helped very much during the development and maintenance of this site. The Time Zone Database - maintained by Arthur David Olson, Paul Eggert and hundreds of volunteers, available at ftp://elsie.nci.nih.gov/pub/ - much of time zone information is obtained here". I particularly like his neat webinterface and many functions. He seems to be pretty up to date, but it looks like he uses predominantly tzdata, so probably nothing new here. About the time formats used in tzdata files. I agree with you that it looks a bit like a mess, but the format is clearly explained in the file zic.8 in the tzcode folder. A time followed by w is 'wall clock' time, followed by s is local standard time, followed by u, g or z is universal time. Without a subsequent letter wall clock time is assumed. My interpretations: 'wall clock' time is the current local time, which could be wintertime or summertime. The 'local standard' time is always the local wintertime. 'Universal' time is the same as UTC. Although this is a reaction to a more or less private email, I hope you don't mind if I send my email in copy to the tz-mailing list, since it is possible that the answers are useful to more people. Even then, some of my interpretations could be wrong and I would like to be corrected on them. Regards, Oscar van Vlijmen 2000-01-31

1 0

FW: Changes for TZ Europe/Tallinn
by Olson, Arthur David (NCI) Jan. 31, 2000

Jan. 31, 2000

-----Original Message----- From: Mart Oruaas [SMTP:fazz@pobox.com] Sent: Saturday, January 29, 2000 10:47 AM To: tz(a)elsie.nci.nih.gov Subject: Changes for TZ Europe/Tallinn Hello. As it was expected, Estonian government decided not switch between summer and winter time anymore since spring 2000. Regulation no. 301 from the 12th of October 1999 obsoletes previous regulation no. 206 from the 22nd of September 1998 and thus sticks Estonia to +02:00 GMT for all the year round. The regulation is effective from the 1st on November 1999: http://trip.rk.ee/cgi-bin/thw?${BASE}=akt&${THWIDS}=0.2/894&${HTML}=rtdl1x&… URLSAVE}=2/894A >From now on, the zone definition for Europe/Tallinn should probably look like this: # Zone NAME GMTOFF RULES FORMAT [UNTIL] Zone Europe/Tallinn 1:39:00 - LMT 1880 1:39:00 - TMT 1918 Feb # Tallinn Mean Time 1:00 C-Eur CE%sT 1919 Jul 1:39:00 - TMT 1921 May 2:00 - EET 1940 Aug 6 3:00 - MSK 1941 Sep 15 1:00 C-Eur CE%sT 1944 Sep 22 3:00 Russia MSK/MSD 1989 Mar 26 2:00s 2:00 1:00 EEST 1989 Sep 24 2:00s 2:00 C-Eur EE%sT 1998 Sep 22 2:00 EU EE%sT 1999 Nov 1 2:00 - EET PS. I hope that it stays this way. Politicians tend to make pretty surprising moves sometimes... ;-) -- fazz

1 0

FW: Summer Time on Lord Howe Island
by Olson, Arthur David (NCI) Jan. 31, 2000

Jan. 31, 2000

-----Original Message----- From: Jesper Nørgaard [SMTP:jnorgard@Prodigy.Net.mx] Sent: Thursday, January 27, 2000 9:06 PM To: 'TZ mailing list' Subject: FW: Summer Time on Lord Howe Island I made a number of inquiries via e-mail to recipients in Lord Howe Island, and got this response which seems to me to be authoritative. I don't know if anybody can confirm this further. Certainly there exists a Lord Howe Island Board determining issues on the island. So the suggestion is to change the start time for Lord Howe Island to equal Sydney and other NSW localities. Regards, ---------- From: Jeeves[SMTP:kingfish@bigpond.com.au] Sent: Jueves 27 de Enero de 2000 16.38 To: jnorgard(a)Prodigy.Net.mx Subject: Summer Time on Lord Howe Island Jesper Lord Howe Island summer time in 2000/2001 will commence on the same date as the rest of NSW (i.e. 27/8/00). For your information the Lord Howe Island Board (controlling authority for the Island) is seeking the community's views on various options for summer time arrangements on the Island, e.g. advance clocks by 1 full hour instead of only 30 minutes. Dependant on the wishes of residents the Board may approach the NSW government to change the existing arrangements. The starting date for summer time on the Island will however always coincide with the rest of NSW. I hope this helps. James Lonergan Secretary Lord Howe Island Board

1 0

Changes for TZ Europe/Tallinn
by Mart Oruaas Jan. 29, 2000

Jan. 29, 2000

Hello. As it was expected, Estonian government decided not switch between summer and winter time anymore since spring 2000. Regulation no. 301 from the 12th of October 1999 obsoletes previous regulation no. 206 from the 22nd of September 1998 and thus sticks Estonia to +02:00 GMT for all the year round. The regulation is effective from the 1st on November 1999: http://trip.rk.ee/cgi-bin/thw?${BASE}=akt&${THWIDS}=0.2/894&${HTML}=rtdl1x&… URLSAVE}=2/894A >From now on, the zone definition for Europe/Tallinn should probably look like this: # Zone NAME GMTOFF RULES FORMAT [UNTIL] Zone Europe/Tallinn 1:39:00 - LMT 1880 1:39:00 - TMT 1918 Feb # Tallinn Mean Time 1:00 C-Eur CE%sT 1919 Jul 1:39:00 - TMT 1921 May 2:00 - EET 1940 Aug 6 3:00 - MSK 1941 Sep 15 1:00 C-Eur CE%sT 1944 Sep 22 3:00 Russia MSK/MSD 1989 Mar 26 2:00s 2:00 1:00 EEST 1989 Sep 24 2:00s 2:00 C-Eur EE%sT 1998 Sep 22 2:00 EU EE%sT 1999 Nov 1 2:00 - EET PS. I hope that it stays this way. Politicians tend to make pretty surprising moves sometimes... ;-) -- fazz

1 0

FW: Summer Time on Lord Howe Island
by Jesper Nørgaard Jan. 28, 2000

Jan. 28, 2000

I made a number of inquiries via e-mail to recipients in Lord Howe Island, and got this response which seems to me to be authoritative. I don't know if anybody can confirm this further. Certainly there exists a Lord Howe Island Board determining issues on the island. So the suggestion is to change the start time for Lord Howe Island to equal Sydney and other NSW localities. Regards, ---------- From: Jeeves[SMTP:kingfish@bigpond.com.au] Sent: Jueves 27 de Enero de 2000 16.38 To: jnorgard(a)Prodigy.Net.mx Subject: Summer Time on Lord Howe Island Jesper Lord Howe Island summer time in 2000/2001 will commence on the same date as the rest of NSW (i.e. 27/8/00). For your information the Lord Howe Island Board (controlling authority for the Island) is seeking the community's views on various options for summer time arrangements on the Island, e.g. advance clocks by 1 full hour instead of only 30 minutes. Dependant on the wishes of residents the Board may approach the NSW government to change the existing arrangements. The starting date for summer time on the Island will however always coincide with the rest of NSW. I hope this helps. James Lonergan Secretary Lord Howe Island Board

1 0

DST table
by Oscar van Vlijmen Jan. 25, 2000

Jan. 25, 2000

A rather complete daylight saving time table can be found at http://www1.tip.nl/~t876506/DSTtable.html The first half of the table is a date/time sorted list of all DST starting dates and times in the world and the second half of the table gives the DST ending dates/times. Only for the year 2000. Based on the data in tzdata2000a. It is possible that the Australia data is not completely correct, but I wait until the next tzdata files are published. Regards, Oscar van Vlijmen 2000-01-25

1 0

Re: [donnte@microsoft.com: RE: RE: time t]
by Keld Jørn Simonsen Jan. 24, 2000

Jan. 24, 2000

On Mon, Jan 24, 2000 at 10:15:32AM +0100, Antoine Leca wrote: > Hi all, > > Keld Jørn Simonsen wrote: > > > > Hi Wg14 gang, > > > > here is something which is being discussed in the POSIX area, > > How can I be involved in this discussion? > > I have some comments that quickly come to mind when I read it, but > I do not believe this is the appropriate forum to expose them, > and I do not want to enter another forum without being introduced > in some way. > > Also, Keld, can you also forward this announcement to the mailing list > <URL:mailto:tz@elsie.nci.nih.gov> (or to its moderator, Arthur Olson, > <URL:mailto:olsona@dc37a.nci.nih.gov>), where there are also some > discussions on this subject, with very knowledgeable persons. > Or as an alternative, I may forward it myself, but I prefer the > POSIX guys will do the introduction themselves. please refer to http://www.opengroup.org/austin/ Thereyou can enroll in the posix discussion, which currently also includes a discussion on future tim formats. The Austin list is open to everybody. Keld

1 0

URIs for time zone HTML files
by Paul Eggert Jan. 24, 2000

Jan. 24, 2000

I've copied the HTML files in the standard tz distribution to the following locations: http://www.twinsun.com/tz/tz-link.htm http://www.twinsun.com/tz/tz-art.htm Please feel free to publish these URIs; I plan to keep these web pages in sync with the copies in the canonical NCI FTP tarballs. The indirection is necessary because the National Cancer Institute frowns on web pages that can be accessed by the outside world.

1 0