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Tz-announce list
by James Diebel May 13, 2012

May 13, 2012

Hello, I don't mean to harp on this issue but my previous email on the topic has seemed not to have gotten the attention of the person responsible for maintaining the mailing list. The fact is that through the excellent work of the contributors to this project, the tz database has become an essential component in a wide variety of computer systems. As such there is a large community of developers who need to know when new official versions of the database are released. And while I think that I speak for most of us in saying that we have the utmost respect and appreciation for the process that is used to vet proposed changes to the database, it is simply not sensible for all of us non-contributing users to sift through the various emails on the tz mailing list just so that we don't miss the one email in a thousand that marks a new release. When I last raised this, some people responded that if only certain contributors were banned that the problem would go away. I defer to the list administrators on the question of who should be banned from the list and respectfully disagree that that would solve the actual issue. The tz database is an extremely important project and the wide and timely dissemination of updates to the tz database are in the interest of all who use it, directly or indirectly. It should be a primary goal of the project to create systems for notifying users of the database of updates that are most likely to draw widespread use. Any number of unwanted emails reduces the appeal of staying on a given list. I propose the creation of a new list dedicated to announcements of new versions. The only person allowed to post to that list should be the same person that posts updates to the tz database itself. A single post should be posted to the new announcements list at the same time that an update is released. Such posts should be the only posts on that list. Existing subscribers to this list should be automatically added to the new list. Following that, an email to this list should inform non-contributing users that they may now safely unsubscribe from this list. I do not intend to reopen any discussions of banning any users. I cordially ask that those subscribers to the list that agree with my proposal respond saying so. And I respectfully ask whomever is responsible for maintaining the list to respond with comment. Thank you for your time and attention. Cheers, James Sent from a mobile device

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Two elements in list of assigned ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 codes not contained in zone.tab
by Tobias Conradi May 12, 2012

May 12, 2012

To aid the discussion on how much extra work it is to map all currently assigned ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 codes to at least one zone, I did: 1) import a) a list of ISO 3166-1 codes http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_3166-1_alpha-2#Officially_assigned_code_el… b) the list of ISO 3166-1 codes from tzdata2012c/zone.tab 2) performed the query SELECT DISTINCT(tz_zonelist.iso_3166_1), tz_countrylist.iso_3166_1 FROM tz_countrylist LEFT JOIN tz_zonelist ON tz_countrylist.iso_3166_1= tz_zonelist.iso_3166_1 ORDER BY `tz_zonelist`.`iso_3166_1` ASC 3) obtained the results iso_3166_1 iso_3166_1 NULL HM NULL BV AD AD ... That means the only ISO 3166-1 codes not mapped seem to be HM and BV. Any corrections welcome! -- Tobias Conradi Rheinsberger Str. 18 10115 Berlin Germany http://tobiasconradi.com/

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Missing entry for Heard Island and MacDonald Islands
by dfg dfg May 12, 2012

May 12, 2012

Hi everyone, I am a developer by trade, so I am not sure if I have stumbled onto some missing data in the tz database. I am accessing the database using PHP (www.php.net) which uses the latest version of the tz database (2012.3). I can use one of the built in functions to lookup timezone information for a given country using its ISO 3166-1 two letter country code (http://www.php.net/manual/en/datetimezone.listidentifiers.php) I am currently building an application and found that Heard Island and MacDonald Islands (ISO code HM) does not exist in the database. After a quick look at the tz data, I was also not able to find anything about Heard Island and MacDonald Island in the files. I believe that there should be an entry for Heard Island and MacDonald Islands (HM) which uses the timezone Australia/Perth. Is it possible that the entry was intentionally excluded for some reason? Or was it just missing from the database? Cheers,John

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Re: [tz] zone.tab comments Canada - places -> locations
by Tobias Conradi May 11, 2012

May 11, 2012

was "[tz] zone.tab comments Canada - places -> locations [OT - English]" I return to on topic. On Fri, May 11, 2012 at 5:41 AM, Brian Inglis <Brian.Inglis(a)systematicsw.ab.ca> wrote: .... >> C) >> I mean and meant location as in zone.tab >> "Central Standard Time - Saskatchewan - most locations" >> >> D) >> I mean and meant location as in Theory file: > ... > Use of location in Theory refers to a specific place > to be used as the time zone name. Not true. tzcode2012b\Theory: ----- Names of time zone rule files ----- Names normally have the form AREA/LOCATION, where AREA is the name of a continent or ocean, and LOCATION is the name of a specific location within that region. ---------------------------------------- I.e. the /name of a specific location/ is to be used as one /part/ of the time zone name. > Use of places in zone.tab comments refers to the general locales where the > same time zone is observed around the specific location used for the time > zone name; And the use of "locations" in zone.tab is the same. Following are some quotes from RFC 5545 http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc5545 Internet Calendaring and Scheduling Core Object Specification http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc5545#page-28 Failure to include and follow VTIMEZONE definitions in iCalendar objects may lead to inconsistent understanding of the local time at any given location. http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc5545#page-64 Many locations adjust their Standard Time forward or backward by one hour, in order to accommodate seasonal changes in number of daylight hours, often referred to as Daylight Saving Time. Some locations adjust their time by a fraction of an hour. ... This database contains current and historical time zone information for a wide variety of locations around the globe http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc5545#section-3.8.1.7 Property Name: LOCATION Purpose: This property defines the intended venue for the activity defined by a calendar component. The IETF GEOPRIV site https://datatracker.ietf.org/wg/geopriv/ https://datatracker.ietf.org/wg/geopriv/charter/ uses "location" and not "place". Some related ISO standards: a) ISO 19112:2003 Geographic information -- Spatial referencing by geographic identifiers 4.4 location identifiable geographic place found via http://www.iso.org/obp/ui/ b) http://www.iso.org/iso/iso_catalogue/catalogue_ics/catalogue_detail_ics.htm… ISO 6709:2008 Standard representation of geographic point location by coordinates c) http://www.iso.org/iso/iso_catalogue/catalogue_tc/catalogue_detail.htm?csnu… ISO 19133:2005 Geographic information -- Location-based services -- Tracking and navigation Annex: Background information for when the inconsistencies first occurred in the tzdb: tzdata1996l/zone.tab did only have "most locations" and no "most places" America/Halifax Atlantic Time - Nova Scotia (most locations), New Brunswick, Labrador & PEI But did have America/Glace_Bay Atlantic Time - Nova Scotia - places that did not observe DST 1966-1971 America/Nipigon Eastern Time - Ontario & Quebec - places that did not observe DST 1967-1973 tzdata1998a/zone.tab maybe earlier, contains "most places" once: America/Halifax Atlantic Time - Nova Scotia (most places), NB, W Labrador, E Quebec & PEI And twelve times "most locations". -- Tobias Conradi Rheinsberger Str. 18 10115 Berlin Germany http://tobiasconradi.com/

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zone.tab comments Canada - places -> locations
by Tobias Conradi May 11, 2012

May 11, 2012

Current: tzdata2012c/zone.tab America/Halifax Atlantic Time - Nova Scotia (most places), PEI America/Glace_Bay Atlantic Time - Nova Scotia - places that did not observe DST 1966-1971 America/Nipigon Eastern Time - Ontario & Quebec - places that did not observe DST 1967-1973 Proposed: America/Halifax Atlantic Time - Nova Scotia (most locations), PEI America/Glace_Bay Atlantic Time - Nova Scotia - locations that did not observe DST 1966-1971 America/Nipigon Eastern Time - Ontario & Quebec - locations that did not observe DST 1967-1973 Reason: Harmonize. Theory uses "locations" (9x) more often than "places" (2x) zone.tab uses "place" only thrice, namely within the comments field of the three above zone for Canada. zone.tab uses "location" more than 20x. -- Tobias Conradi Rheinsberger Str. 18 10115 Berlin Germany http://tobiasconradi.com/

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Fwd: zone.tab comments Canada - places -> locations
by Tobias Conradi May 10, 2012

May 10, 2012

A comment by Steffen Daode Nurpmeso. ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Steffen Daode Nurpmeso <sdaoden(a)googlemail.com> Date: Thu, May 10, 2012 at 5:33 PM Subject: Re: [tz] zone.tab comments Canada - places -> locations To: Tobias Conradi <tobias.conradi(a)gmail.com> Tobias Conradi <tobias.conradi(a)gmail.com> wrote: | On Thu, May 10, 2012 at 2:21 PM, John Haxby <john.haxby(a)oracle.com> wrote: | > On 10/05/12 05:06, Tobias Conradi wrote: | > No. | No what? | > A native English speaker (like me) would not swap "place" for | I think, if "places" is unambiguous and precise, Tobias Conradi, a | non-native English speaker, wouldn't say "locales" instead of "places" | But me - a non-native English speaker - I would try to avoid choosing Domingos de la gran Puta. M.f.G. --steffen Forza Figa! -- Tobias Conradi Rheinsberger Str. 18 10115 Berlin Germany http://tobiasconradi.com/

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Russia tidbits
by OvV_HN May 10, 2012

May 10, 2012

Regarding: [tz] Uzbekistan - insufficient location desciption Tobias Conradi tobias.conradi at gmail.com Wed May 9 15:48:29 UTC 2012 I would like to propose to ignore this email for the moment. Tobias is trying to give more details for the east / west division of Uzbekistan. Looking at the TZ asia file I get the impression that we are talking about the situation in the olden days. Furthermore I get the impression that Tobias is trying to overlay the current divisions of Uzbekistan to the situation before 1930, when there were 2 distinct timezones. If you look at old maps, you will notice that for instance the Samarkand region cannot be described in terms of provinces of 2012. Reference: http://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%90%D0%B4%D0%BC%D0%B8%D0%BD%D0%B8%D1%81%D1%… (Administrative divisions of Uzbekistan, in Russian) In my opinion the comments in the TZ asia file (Samarkand Time, Tashkent Time) can be regarded as sufficient. Provisionally you may call this West, East, as in zone.tab. So, don't change no nothing! Regarding: Sakha Republic and the Newsiberian Islands. I haven't given a reference yet, here it is: http://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%A4%D0%B0%D0%B9%D0%BB:Sakha_Republic_Munici… In this map we see that the Newsiberian Islands (Novosibirskije Ostrova) are part of the Bulunskij Ulus, numbered 6 in the map. This is no definite proof, but good enough for me. Regarding: Transliteration of Russian names. Please don't Americanize too much. The letter "y" is overused. In that case the reconstruction back into Cyrillic is somewhat difficult. ISO 9 System B, or what I used (Chemical Abstracts = British Standard BS 2979-1958) is better suited for 2-way transliterations. Which I prefer. But if TZ prefers the American way: be my guest. But try to be a bit consistent, which would involve erasing all my Russian transliterations (haha!). Oscar van Vlijmen

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Housekeeping
by David Braverman May 9, 2012

May 9, 2012

Yesterday I asserted that Paul Eggert was confirmed as the list coordinator about four weeks ago. I've since gone back through the archive and didn't find an formal announcement. Can someone at IANA or in the IESG send official word? Also, I'm not sure of the procedure or criteria, if any, for banning someone from the list, but I would suggest taking a look to see if the person in question had ever gotten banned from other communities, and under what circumstances. For example, if someone had been banned multiple times from another online community for incivility and sock puppetry, and currently has an indefinite ban from that group, that would be interesting to know, wouldn't it? David Braverman Inner Drive Technology http://www.inner-drive.com/Demo/Timezones.aspx

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zone.tab comments - most, most places -> most locations
by Tobias Conradi May 9, 2012

May 9, 2012

Current: tzdata2012c/zone.tab Asia/Urumqi most of Tibet & Xinjiang America/Halifax Atlantic Time - Nova Scotia (most places), PEI Proposed: Asia/Urumqi Tibet & Xinjiang - most locations America/Halifax Atlantic Time - Nova Scotia - most locations, PEI Reason: Harmonize with Australia/Hobart Tasmania - most locations Australia/Sydney New South Wales - most locations Australia/Brisbane Queensland - most locations Australia/Perth Western Australia - most locations America/Goose_Bay Atlantic Time - Labrador - most locations America/Montreal Eastern Time - Quebec - most locations America/Toronto Eastern Time - Ontario - most locations America/Iqaluit Eastern Time - east Nunavut - most locations America/Regina Central Standard Time - Saskatchewan - most locations America/Mexico_City Central Time - most locations America/Detroit Eastern Time - Michigan - most locations -- Tobias Conradi Rheinsberger Str. 18 10115 Berlin Germany http://tobiasconradi.com/

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Potentially a libel/ criminal offence on the tz mailing list WAS: Housekeeping
by Tobias Conradi May 9, 2012

May 9, 2012

On Wed, May 9, 2012 at 4:05 PM, gunther Vermeir <gunther.vermeir(a)gmail.com> wrote: > I assume you refer to tobias conradi's several wiki/media/pedia/etc bans? If your claim cannot be proven it may constitute libel, which is a criminal offence in several jurisdictions. -- Tobias Conradi Rheinsberger Str. 18 10115 Berlin Germany http://tobiasconradi.com/

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