June 2019 - tz - lists.iana.org

*Off top* A little respect ...
by Chris Woodbury June 26, 2019

June 26, 2019

On Tue Jun 25 13:34:37 UTC 2019, Sergij Marchenko makars at gmail.com wrote: > > What is the time zone here? This is not interesting to anyone. Actually, I disagree, that is *EXACTLY* what this list is about. It is a *technical list about timezones* and the IANA TZ software. Generally, I/we would rather politics did not rear its ugly head. However, there is a constant trickle of folks *WHO MISS THIS POINT ENTIRELY*. > The question is, to which country belongs the territory occupied by Putin Huilo. To you; perhaps. To this list, probably not. *County codes* kept by the TZ database are a secondary aspect of the zone. (Again: *NOT A LEGAL DOCUMENT*.) TZ keeps the country code only as a non-authoritative aspect of the data. Specifically, "the CC normally identifies the administrative hierarchy that currently effectively determines the the civil time". Again, we're talking about "reality on the ground". (Though Dr. Eggert did mention AQ (Antarctica) and Crimea being exceptions.) "zone.tab", one of the files listing CCs, explicitly states: 19: This table is intended as an aid for users to help them select timezones 20: appropriate for their practical needs. It is not intended to take or 21: endorse any position on legal or territorial claims. "zone1970.tab", the other file, says exactly the same thing starting on line 30. Both files explicitly refer to this disclaimer for the Europe/Simferopol entry. Last but not least, currently the CCs of Europe/Simferopol in ".zone.tab" and "zone1970.tab" are "UA" and "RU,UA" respectively. These seem apropos to me.

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Daylight saving and heart attacks
by Arthur David Olson June 26, 2019

June 26, 2019

Belatedly...brought to my attention by reading Matt Parker's "Humble Pi," the youtube video "Does daylight saving kill people?" from September, 2018. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XZGs5Im9f8Q @dashdashado

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*Off topic* A little respect ...
by Chris Woodbury June 25, 2019

June 25, 2019

> On Sun Jun 23 08:57:16 UTC 2019 Sergij Marchenko makars at gmail.com wrote: > > You write very beautifully, but the fact remains that once the Russians > occupy the Crimea, you immediately made changes, pleasing Putin ... Yes, I suppose that might have pleased Putin (if he ever became aware of it if only by the fact that his cellular telephone showed the correct local time) but ... it wasn't done to please or displease him or his cronies (and the fifth columnists 'phones are right, too.) It was, as has been explained, to reflect the technical "reality on the ground". I'm sorry if that displeased you but it is what it is. Being obstreperous isn't going to change anything (except by further expanding the misery). Making us out to be tools of injustice doesn't make it so. Note that the *country codes* that came into question have been patched reasonably expeditiously by Dr. Eggert. TZ will reflect reality as best it can under the circumstances with or without anyone's complete satisfaction. I *am* certain that no one is happy about all the death, destruction and heart wrenching circumstances from what has come to pass. My thoughts and prayers are with all the people who find themselves in such unfortunate conditions. Were it only within my power to change them....

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Jeopardy! category on time zones 2019-05-28
by Tim Parenti June 25, 2019

June 25, 2019

Apparently there is a category on time zones on the US version of *Jeopardy!* tonight (Tuesday 28 May). I'll avoid any spoilers for now — due to the vagaries of US broadcast syndication and, well, time zones — for anyone stateside who might be as captivated by the performance of the current champion, James Holzhauer, as my friends. I'll try to send over the clues tomorrow. -- Tim Parenti

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Timezone in Autonomous Republic of Crimea and spelling of Kyiv
by Oleksandr Ryzhenko June 23, 2019

June 23, 2019

*Dear Mr. Paul Eggert,* By this letter let me as the representative of Ukraine to ICANN's GAC inform you about the following. The State Agency for e-Governance of Ukraine is the national authority of Ukraine that is responsible for matters related to Internet governance, including those within the purview of ICANN. We have discovered mistakes in the Time Zone Database. In particular, the time zones, country code and coordinates for the part of Ukrainian territory, namely the Autonomous Republic of Crimea, the city of Simferopol, and Sevastopol, are determined incorrectly. As far as we are aware, the Zone Europe/Simferopol was changed to MSK on the grounds of Russian Federation citizen appeal (Mr. Alexander Krivenyshev). The appeal was filed after *Russian military intervention in Autonomous Republic of Crimea followed by the illegal annexation of the sovereign territory of Ukraine.* We would request your immediate attention that change of this specified time zone is *a gross violation of the rules of international law*, namely: - United Nations General Assembly Resolution 68/262, adopted on March 27, 2014 by the sixty-eighth session of the United Nations General Assembly in response to the Russian annexation of Crimea, entitled "Territorial integrity of Ukraine"; - United Nations General Assembly Resolutions 71/205, 72/190, 73/263: Situation of human rights in the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and the city of Sevastopol (Ukraine); - United Nations General Assembly Resolution 73/194: Problem of the militarization of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and the city of Sevastopol, Ukraine, as well as parts of the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov. Taking into account the above, we urge you to resolve this situation by determining *EU EE%sT time for Zone Europe/Simferopol* in Time Zone Database and identify* UA* as a country code for *Europe/Simferopol.* At the same time, we draw your attention to the decision of The United States Board on Geographic Names. *English spelling of Ukraine’s capital has changed from Kiev to Kyiv* (source: https://www.kyivpost.com/world/kyiv-not-kiev-us-changes-spelling-of-ukraini…) In this regard, we ask you to update the spelling of Kyiv in all existing databases of your organization. ---------------------------------------------- *Sincerely,Oleksandr RyzhenkoHead of the State Agency for e-Governance of UkraineRepresentative of Ukraine to ICANN’s GAC *

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*Off topic* A little respect ...
by Chris Woodbury June 23, 2019

June 23, 2019

To Oleksandr Ryzhenko, et al, and whom so ever might be listening: Firstly, that's Dr. Paul R. Eggert, PhD 1980 UCLA. He has been voluntarily contributing his time to this (and other) projects (and education) for over thirty years. I, for one, respect and value his contributions (even when I momentarily forget to do so). Secondly, telling us (and him) that such and such is a violation of "*international law*" (as tho they were an authority and someone was going to be dragged off to the The Hague) is a threat and an inappropriate response to the supposed provocation. Making such is a clear indication that there is a certain lack of understanding of what's really going on. (As an aside and for what it's worth: I commiserate with those worrying about the whole Kiev/Kyiv thing. It's a huge "can of worms" and technical but it ain't going to happen! If it were "fixed" this one time, a precedent would be set and similar "problems" would have to be "fixed". It would be never ending. Theresult being *technically unnecessary* database "churn". The stance that some-thing like this are internal labels is an interesting solution to a "problem". Also, thinking of them as a thing imposed over the barrel of a gun and wanting to "fix it" *right now*, where others might not, is just going to raise ones blood pressure. It will be changed sometime. The language or transliteration will change over time, or there will be new generation of tzdb volunteer maintainers (hint, hint) or, possibly, our own version of Vasili Arkhipov* will come along and find a solution. Remember, sometimes a "problem" is merely a matter of perspective. (I was also raised to appreciate an excellent quibble when I see one.)) (Also, I might be wrong, but one might consider that treating the TZ database as if it were a legal document could be a mistake.) Lastly, I personally would appreciate it if the folks "who have a bone to pick" would spend the same amount of time they spend so carefully crafting their e-mails*going over the content of the archives* before they actually send them. It also might be helpful to *consult a subject matter expert* while composing, too. It might just save some time for all of us. * An underappreciated man who saved the world. -

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[PATCH] Fix ‘make check’ problems caused by recent changes
by Paul Eggert June 22, 2019

June 22, 2019

* Makefile: Fix stray non-ASCII chars in comments. (check_sorted): Omit tests that duplicate what checktab.awk does. Discovered when debugging checktab.awk. * checktab.awk: Don’t complain about special case for Crimea. --- Makefile | 10 ++-------- checktab.awk | 9 ++++++++- 2 files changed, 10 insertions(+), 9 deletions(-) diff --git a/Makefile b/Makefile index d305f68..6816d3b 100644 --- a/Makefile +++ b/Makefile @@ -36,7 +36,7 @@ DATAFORM= main LOCALTIME= GMT # The POSIXRULES macro controls interpretation of nonstandard and obsolete -# POSIX-like TZ settings like TZ=’EET-2EEST’ that lack DST transition rules. +# POSIX-like TZ settings like TZ='EET-2EEST' that lack DST transition rules. # In the reference implementation, if you want something other than Eastern # United States time as a template for handling these settings, you can # change the line below (after finding the timezone you want in the @@ -58,7 +58,7 @@ LOCALTIME= GMT # Nonempty POSIXRULES is obsolete and should not be relied on, because: # * It does not work correctly in popular implementations such as GNU/Linux. # * It does not work in the tzdb implementation for timestamps after 2037. -# * It is incompatible with ’zic -b slim’ if POSIXRULES specifies transitions +# * It is incompatible with 'zic -b slim' if POSIXRULES specifies transitions # at standard time or UT rather than at local time. # In short, software should avoid ruleless settings like TZ='EET-2EEST' # and so should not depend on the value of POSIXRULES. @@ -805,12 +805,6 @@ CHECK_CC_LIST = { n = split($$1,a,/,/); for (i=2; i<=n; i++) print a[1], a[i]; } check_sorted: backward backzone iso3166.tab zone.tab zone1970.tab $(AWK) '/^Link/ {print $$3}' backward | LC_ALL=C sort -cu $(AWK) '/^Zone/ {print $$2}' backzone | LC_ALL=C sort -cu - $(AWK) '/^[^#]/ {print $$1}' iso3166.tab | LC_ALL=C sort -cu - $(AWK) '/^[^#]/ {print $$1}' zone.tab | LC_ALL=C sort -c - $(AWK) '/^[^#]/ {print substr($$0, 1, 2)}' zone1970.tab | \ - LC_ALL=C sort -c - $(AWK) '/^[^#]/ $(CHECK_CC_LIST)' zone1970.tab | \ - LC_ALL=C sort -cu touch $@ check_links: checklinks.awk $(TDATA_TO_CHECK) tzdata.zi diff --git a/checktab.awk b/checktab.awk index 393ab19..ec145b5 100644 --- a/checktab.awk +++ b/checktab.awk @@ -63,12 +63,19 @@ BEGIN { coordinates = $2 tz = $3 comments = $4 - if (cc < cc0) { + + # Don't complain about a special case for Crimea in zone.tab. + # FIXME: zone.tab should be removed, since it is obsolete. + # Or at least put just "XX" in its country-code column. + if (cc < cc0 \ + && !(zone_table == "zone.tab" \ + && tz0 == "Europe/Simferopol")) { printf "%s:%d: country code '%s' is out of order\n", \ zone_table, zone_NR, cc >>"/dev/stderr" status = 1 } cc0 = cc + tz0 = tz tztab[tz] = 1 tz2comments[tz] = comments tz2NR[tz] = zone_NR -- 2.21.0

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Re: [tz] Crimean timezones
by Sergij Marchenko June 21, 2019

June 21, 2019

Dear Paul, By making such a proposal to Mr. Demediuk you are in fact taking sides despite your alleged neutrality. Russia's claims to Crimea are not supported by anyone but Russia itself, perhaps barring a negligible amount of countries that have their own governments largely criticized as undemocratic. The vast majority of countries have openly condemned the annexation and Russian aggression and continue to recognize Crimea as a Ukrainian territory it is. A solution, which is more consistent with your view, exists. The patch could instead make the interface display the timezones in question as Russian to Russian users alone, while in the rest of the world they would be listed as Ukrainian. This practice, although controversial in the face of the international law, is a lesser violation of it than the current state of matter. By keeping things the way they are now you are sending the world a message. The message is that you are endorsing the aggressor, even though it may not appear to you as such. With a leaden heart we would accept the territory being assigned to different countries depending on a user's geolocation, provided that RU only shows up for Russian users and UA is the default configuration elsewhere, globally. Otherwise we would kindly ask you to drop the neutrality claims and make your open endorsement of Russian military aggression against Ukraine transparent. Kind regards. -- Best regards, Sergij Marchenko mailto:makars@gmail.com http://makar.homelinux.net Skype: makarsoft Viber/WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal: +380661877234

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Re: [tz] Crimean timezones
by Sergij Marchenko June 21, 2019

June 21, 2019

I'm using Fedora release 30 (Thirty) 5.1.11-300.fc30.x86_64 Here is a screenshot in the Gnome-3 environment: http://makar.homelinux.net/ftp/pub/exchange/20190621/Screenshot_20190620_14… When selecting the city Simferopol highlights the Russian Federation (and in fact, correctly - Ukraine) Here is a screenshot in KDE: http://makar.homelinux.net/ftp/pub/exchange/20190621/Screenshot_20190620_21… When choosing a city, Simferopol highlights Europe / Russia (and in fact, rightly, Europe / Ukraine) -- Best regards, Sergij Marchenko mailto:makars@gmail.com http://makar.homelinux.net Skype: makarsoft Viber/WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal: +380661877234

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Timezone in Autonomous Republic of Crimea and spelling of Kyiv
by Oleksandr Ryzhenko June 21, 2019

June 21, 2019

*Dear Mr. Paul Eggert,* By this letter let me as the representative of Ukraine to ICANN's GAC inform you about the following. The State Agency for e-Governance of Ukraine is the national authority of Ukraine that is responsible for matters related to Internet governance, including those within the purview of ICANN. We have discovered mistakes in the Time Zone Database. In particular, the time zones, country code and coordinates for the part of Ukrainian territory, namely the Autonomous Republic of Crimea, the city of Simferopol, and Sevastopol, are determined incorrectly. As far as we are aware, the Zone Europe/Simferopol was changed to MSK on the grounds of Russian Federation citizen appeal (Mr. Alexander Krivenyshev). The appeal was filed after Russian military intervention in Autonomous Republic of Crimea followed by the illegal annexation of the sovereign territory of Ukraine. We would request your immediate attention that change of this specified time zone is a gross *violation of the rules of international law*, namely: - United Nations General Assembly Resolution 68/262, adopted on March 27, 2014 by the sixty-eighth session of the United Nations General Assembly in response to the Russian annexation of Crimea, entitled "Territorial integrity of Ukraine"; - United Nations General Assembly Resolutions 71/205, 72/190, 73/263: Situation of human rights in the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and the city of Sevastopol (Ukraine); - United Nations General Assembly Resolution 73/194: Problem of the militarization of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and the city of Sevastopol, Ukraine, as well as parts of the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov. Taking into account the above, we urge you to resolve this situation by determining *EU EE%sT *time for *Zone Europe/Simferopol *in Time Zone Database and identify *UA* as a country code for* Europe/Simferopol.* At the same time, we draw your attention to the decision of The United States Board on Geographic Names. *English spelling of Ukraine’s capital has changed* from Kiev to *Kyiv* (source: https://www.kyivpost.com/world/kyiv-not-kiev-us-changes-spelling-of-ukraini…) In this regard, we ask you to update the spelling of Kyiv in all existing databases of your organization. ---------------------------------------------- *Sincerely,Oleksandr RyzhenkoHead of the State Agency for e-Governance of UkraineRepresentative of Ukraine to ICANN’s GAC*

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