February 2000 - tz - lists.iana.org

Israel Timezone -- Dates for 2000-2002
by Ephraim Silverberg Feb. 17, 2000

Feb. 17, 2000

Attached are the context diffs of the 'asia' file of tzdata2000a.tar.gz showing the start/end dates of Daylight Savings Time in Israel from 2000 until 2002 inclusive. As the comment in the file notes, the end date of 2000 and both dates for 2001 and 2002 are pending final approval. -----------------------------------CUT-HERE------------------------------------ *** asia.orig Tue Jan 18 16:21:18 2000 --- asia Thu Feb 17 14:55:59 2000 *************** *** 1,4 **** ! # @(#)asia 7.51 # This data is by no means authoritative; if you think you know better, # go ahead and edit the file (and please send any changes to --- 1,4 ---- ! # @(#)asia 7.52 # This data is by no means authoritative; if you think you know better, # go ahead and edit the file (and please send any changes to *************** *** 588,605 **** Rule Zion 1999 only - Apr 2 2:00 1:00 D Rule Zion 1999 only - Sep 3 2:00 0 S ! # Due to imminent elections in 1999, there are no dates for the year 2000 ! # and beyond. There was a move to legislate the DST rules in Israel, but ! # due to the government's fall, it most likely won't be brought to the Knesset ! # for first reading before the elections and will probably be altered by the ! # newly elected government. # From Paul Eggert (1999-01-30): ! # Here are guesses for rules after 1999. # They are probably wrong, but they are more likely than no DST at all. # Rule NAME FROM TO TYPE IN ON AT SAVE LETTER/S ! Rule Zion 2000 max - Apr Fri>=1 2:00 1:00 D ! Rule Zion 2000 max - Sep Fri>=1 2:00 0 S # Zone NAME GMTOFF RULES FORMAT [UNTIL] Zone Asia/Jerusalem 2:20:56 - LMT 1880 --- 588,616 ---- Rule Zion 1999 only - Apr 2 2:00 1:00 D Rule Zion 1999 only - Sep 3 2:00 0 S ! # Minister of Interior, Natan Sharansky, has announced the dates for ! # the years 2000-2002. However, sources inside the ministry have noted ! # that the end date of 2000 and both dates of 2001-2002 should be regarded ! # as tentative pending final approval. ! # ! # The official announcement for the years 2000-2001 can be viewed at: ! # ! # ftp://ftp.huji.ac.il/pub/tz/announcements/2000-2002.ps.gz ! ! # Rule NAME FROM TO TYPE IN ON AT SAVE LETTER/S ! Rule Zion 2000 only - Apr 14 2:00 1:00 D ! Rule Zion 2000 only - Oct 22 2:00 0 S ! Rule Zion 2001 only - Apr 6 2:00 1:00 D ! Rule Zion 2001 only - Oct 10 2:00 0 S ! Rule Zion 2002 only - Mar 29 2:00 1:00 D ! Rule Zion 2002 only - Sep 29 2:00 0 S # From Paul Eggert (1999-01-30): ! # Here are guesses for rules after 2002. # They are probably wrong, but they are more likely than no DST at all. # Rule NAME FROM TO TYPE IN ON AT SAVE LETTER/S ! Rule Zion 2003 max - Mar Fri>=25 2:00 1:00 D ! Rule Zion 2003 max - Sep Fri>=24 2:00 0 S # Zone NAME GMTOFF RULES FORMAT [UNTIL] Zone Asia/Jerusalem 2:20:56 - LMT 1880 ----------------------------------UNTIL-HERE----------------------------------- ___________________________________________________________________________ Ephraim Silverberg, CSE System Group, Phone number: 972-2-6585521 Hebrew University, Jerusalem, Israel. Fax number: 972-2-6585439 WWW: http://www.cs.huji.ac.il/~ephraim E-mail: ephraim(a)cse.huji.ac.il

1 1

FW: Time Zone question
by Olson, Arthur David (NCI) Feb. 16, 2000

Feb. 16, 2000

Rajendra is not on the time zone mailing list; be sure to address replies appropriately. --ado -----Original Message----- From: Dodhiawala, Rajendra [SMTP:raj.dodhiawala@cacheflow.com] Sent: Tuesday, February 15, 2000 4:42 PM To: tz(a)elsie.nci.nih.gov Subject: Time Zone question 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

3 3

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