- tz - lists.iana.org

Re: [tz] TZDB use cases
by Hal Murray Oct. 5, 2021

Oct. 5, 2021

Stephen Colebourne said: > So, it turns out that there is, I believe, a critical difference here between > the US view of timezones and the European one. In the US, timezones do not > follow the boundary of the whole country, nor even States. In Europe, by > contrast, timezone boundaries are very much driven by country boundaries. There is another interesting difference. US borders are stable. Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia have split post 1970. Did all the pieces retain the same TZ info? I think small regions on the France/German border changed sides after WW 1. Are there others? Anything similar post 1970? Have any US/state borders changed when rivers changed their course? If so, do any people live in the regions that changed and/or did anything interesting happen there? -- These are my opinions. I hate spam.

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32-bit section missing transitions in 2021b
by Daniel Fischer Oct. 2, 2021

Oct. 2, 2021

Hi, It looks like 32-bit data generated by 2021b is missing the effects of transitions below INT32_MIN. Before commit 93132d18, zones had a transition at INT32_MIN to the type in use at that time. For example, the Pacific/Port_Moresby zone used to have these two transitions: -2147483648 -> 1 (+10) 2147483647 -> 1 (+10) Starting with commit 93132d18, including in 2021b, only one transition is present: 2147483647 -> 1 (+10) Since clients are supposed to assume type 0 before the earliest transition, this almost always leads to wrong times for some period of time (or all times for extreme cases like Port Moresby). Danny -- Daniel Fischer Rastatt, Germany Oracle Global Services Germany GmbH

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[tz-announce] 2021c release of tz code and data available
by Paul Eggert via tz-announce Oct. 1, 2021

Oct. 1, 2021

The 2021c release of the tz code and data is available. This is a bugfix release that addresses compatibility problems reported since 2021b came out, notably those reported by Stephen Colebourne. Although this release doesn't address the deeper issues about maintenance philosophy and procedures (discussion of which is ongoing), it does merge in changes to address what Stephen reported was his primary problem with 2021b. This release reflects the following changes, which were either circulated on the tz mailing list or are relatively minor technical or administrative changes: Briefly: Revert most 2021b changes to 'backward'. Fix 'zic -b fat' bug in pre-1970 32-bit data. Fix two Link line typos. Distribute SECURITY file. This release is intended as a bugfix release, to fix compatibility problems and typos reported since 2021b was released. Changes to Link directives Revert almost all of 2021b's changes to the 'backward' file, by moving Link directives back to where they were in 2021a. Although 'zic' doesn't care which source file contains a Link directive, some downstream uses ran into trouble with the move. (Problem reported by Stephen Colebourne for Joda-Time.) Fix typo that linked Atlantic/Jan_Mayen to the wrong location (problem reported by Chris Walton). Fix 'backzone' typo that linked America/Virgin to the wrong location (problem reported by Michael Deckers). Changes to code Fix a bug in 'zic -b fat' that caused old timestamps to be mishandled in 32-bit-only readers (problem reported by Daniel Fischer). Changes to documentation Distribute the SECURITY file (problem reported by Andreas Radke). Here are links to the release files: https://www.iana.org/time-zones/repository/releases/tzcode2021c.tar.gz https://www.iana.org/time-zones/repository/releases/tzdata2021c.tar.gz https://www.iana.org/time-zones/repository/releases/tzdb-2021c.tar.lz The following convenience links are also available, although they may point to the previous release until the relevant caches are refreshed: https://www.iana.org/time-zones/repository/tzcode-latest.tar.gz https://www.iana.org/time-zones/repository/tzdata-latest.tar.gz https://www.iana.org/time-zones/repository/tzdb-latest.tar.lz Links are also available via plain HTTP, and via FTP from ftp://ftp.iana.org/tz/releases with the same basenames as above. Each release file has a GPG signature, which can be retrieved by appending ".asc" to the above URLs. Copies of these signatures are appended to this message. This release corresponds to commit d2c79c4bc68c02b785990a6d4eb161770058078e dated 2021-10-01 14:21:49 -0700 and tagged '2021c' in the development GitHub repository at <https://github.com/eggert/tz>. Here are the SHA-512 checksums for the release files: 9ed7677744058c58656b47d77d464bad6ef503f2892b53c6abe694e68e73fa123dfc5c11bbcbbb7798f0a6bf1da72b81f8f1c63670839b967e15e58d6d36adad tzcode2021c.tar.gz e8de3a17c38f530b2ec39605699742dd32da5ee92ecf64accaaa5b012a1dac51d1f594adc52660602c3425016520346ab6ad614fa475eb310e17ccdcae93e6ca tzdata2021c.tar.gz a6a86b5b84353c952eec6192222f95f348900dfb414f2dd205fa245515a0f240ba50eab83999f2a5c2cc8e3547406c111aacd96ff9043364d679c86a5e4b0794 tzdb-2021c.tar.lz Here are the GPG digital signatures for the release files: -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- iQIzBAABCgAdFiEEfjeSqdis99YzvBWI7ZfpDmKqfjQFAmFXfJgACgkQ7ZfpDmKq fjReHA/+LiurpLRdXhwkSuhwUKlAQTKmry3F2/zFyobqi+EEEd7naiJIiQbIlScv aZ0cr6Tpq+oP0L8K0EaLMnz9vvb4qd7M3LLGOcrsML8/z0IigMBaA4c8L/Ep3ACa nsLTKESq6bYUJ2SbaFcCFx4KqwA8UEmfhzrPbNxeb3SVgrI1KwUWkpuTCOpewu+g ZYCVO7mFRhLuaD3wCbErtw9g7vQHyHGPGfTDHyc6lPrEbIaY1gwgl6GwBTmJD72a przvxg/0r0X+ZzHH9GZRQaWSDEGXYUdnIwrnS7zwDNk33WO3VwgLWiX2QMGJwiTe wPku4mnGkRhwQLzG+kJxpWe3DJ9/iKFVvxvS3/5RSN1mnELA6xcGOWMTL9cawlwo RkpyN3bLow/9u3wcW2QSrDhCTlGl5kUeK7Qbi20Rji9q2NIO0zrJ732pdr0PgyCN NeuO0YnHUW0bvGO7IMv0JfhQ+VbjB9yAzOg7D2bR2dSVm++38bR8umI757xU/6sT /CTIpmfP67FsXmtg98PbO6rEmoLr7Y/t+JYi/AwzvoHeFS5CAGs9xnTpdk+dBhjh wjLegKDtLZpIUppH9AkJ/T9MAVsfFpsLa2EnteF3LuYZhFTXzLJj3uo3l6Ji0eMZ RRy1jZAxnZ02EoLRIloezzST4pmxIurepluyzvTXVBBuXcoqDk4= =S2t+ -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- iQIzBAABCgAdFiEEfjeSqdis99YzvBWI7ZfpDmKqfjQFAmFXfJgACgkQ7ZfpDmKq fjR/9g/+LOFIZC6n1xKEMn95PsJx2e+zQ4m2/MG1L1KKZdR6kYnvQHL3hh+dXLdr cKRoB6k4AZDaCl7NZDZ8iKgm0nrXnG4/dVEfVOeJn9VHdRyYZ4sg68Nij0yHheRN fcX/ikKwmVaszwj8t+zTmetZOxlJi1mdLyZaQYgBZuM+8Aj+AnB3QUT00yP3j5xP lZgAToYXyLg8KweHnCuD41ZzU8AmsUU2GSfbTryez5lSGnhTsI+tNFtk5w+2fWZZ C0ZAskT//F2k6viFBozeBoodTs955mPKuzyWte6WyhQOTVUySuaeeAU7Dc9SK1k2 nNMTDeQyR78CL39D/X0qmINAif9YKqQ1k0fJFHH1K+pSbhtw0TaqZarQ7JRQnZpC XSIJ9PwpuLLb4k0pBUWYS+r1bZDWrymmgvDO4uNFRFC8LWR4pKyWZ8k34IYQndaV otWbBcThgyz8JJk5mrf113j7qQ3AYiC/y1lVtBpCXpOy1LzYGSTDUqUoHeib8ToD Q3wD1UTPPlo1nh47+cx/Fq1MasdB4MF/OwX7w33nV7TbYgNOHHjb5ROgf7unbaqM 96rtJDRFXFnnPtDOES3xtF4IEEXeoqx1q6AEEcEBBmkCc+DQk5AvW64JwluKn4b1 XSDP7AuXex+wJKffa/7I2KyNLNiX8aLQcnvVsD9cqV4hComR3O8= =LtLe -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- iQIzBAABCgAdFiEEfjeSqdis99YzvBWI7ZfpDmKqfjQFAmFXfJoACgkQ7ZfpDmKq fjTWQA/9Geo9i7m1YlBbU6xJQFyT2AVTTeCgA3wnQOc7VXj5Sy8/7JBU/AJW4Vmi iaTE+XZJU8ghslbdwkyEwoFcZ+4dT8qtjIDSaJ989LV8zpL0MPjgQPdYnh9egaGo qUQBXBcBzzK6giDut7vYcldf5YbK8AAv/ApvVyqL9JjdjbE2P3/juPAHUBUTxHIl bGrnRKbXIeqHB2MGgNZcby4HyblR+BCue3r9kN7Jq0kzETHG8UDeEDeHpL9x9DIq QIYpCiiuMvT7FZR4vNlQg5oBm6Tjz47BEWlvpDQcZHSAgXVrMOTds7uameG72DRW TtEGbozg2LQS3RKHn9mN0GK505d/qiSgrR/AoP420g6xa7d49Orz5qTcE4hUUqQ6 /YA2/3LqqCXeNep/BjwDvsvSTN8TKF4y0iF26Ie2BWRCnI377tT/76NncWaXRT3f k4X2qdIu/6EGle9kleanIZvet3/yavwpOXpgjcMPBwa1RoZDcH2/YSTd0uFhBXLw FTgJ2LKU1d7HVn5VR3t0z1ltjTjv5kjAt+/E/xdANN/vY27ef6yOMp9Mq4z3Pp9Y cUtwwM0aXchlCcomOhoKOShW/j8hFFlIX3pEEAQOhvDS4t7zw0x18+737Fi5diY6 5GUcyKs0sgIkGcAco1qZXd6vvR61ekq7rgMANpi8g9H5igjt5TM= =23yb -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- PS. If your tzdata parser does not yet support negative DST offsets or times past 24:00, or if it insists on a 'pacificnew' file that is no longer present, this release's data entries can be turned into a rearguard-format tarball that should work even with these older parsers. This is intended to be a temporary transition aid for these parsers. To generate a rearguard-format tarball, obtain the full distribution as described above, and run the command 'make rearguard_tarballs' on a development host. Or you can run 'make rearguard.zi' to generate a single file that can be fed directly to a parser that works like 'zic'.

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[tz-announce] 2021b release of tz code and data available
by Paul Eggert via tz-announce Oct. 1, 2021

Oct. 1, 2021

The 2021b release of the tz code and data is available. Partly because it's been so long since 2021a, this release has many changes, noted below. In one area, noted "Merge more location-based Zones" below, the mailing list has had significant trouble coming to a long-term consensus. Because we should publish something before the Samoa change takes effect, this release contains just one step towards making tzdb fairer and more equitable in future releases. This release reflects the following changes, which were either circulated on the tz mailing list or are relatively minor technical or administrative changes: Briefly: Jordan now starts DST on February's last Thursday. Samoa no longer observes DST. Merge more location-based Zones whose timestamps agree since 1970. Move some backward-compatibility links to 'backward'. Rename Pacific/Enderbury to Pacific/Kanton. Correct many pre-1993 transitions in Malawi, Portugal, etc. zic now creates each output file or link atomically. zic -L no longer omits the POSIX TZ string in its output. zic fixes for truncation and leap second table expiration. zic now follows POSIX for TZ strings using all-year DST. Fix some localtime crashes and bugs in obscure cases. zdump -v now outputs more-useful boundary cases. tzfile.5 better matches a draft successor to RFC 8536. A new file SECURITY. This release is prompted by recent announcements by Jordan and Samoa. It incorporates many other changes that had accumulated since 2021a. However, it omits most proposed changes that merged all Zones agreeing since 1970, as concerns were raised about doing too many of these changes at once. It does keeps some of these changes in the interest of making tzdb more equitable one step at a time; see "Merge more location-based Zones" below. Changes to future timestamps Jordan now starts DST on February's last Thursday. (Thanks to Steffen Thorsen.) Samoa no longer observes DST. (Thanks to Geoffrey D. Bennett.) Changes to zone name Rename Pacific/Enderbury to Pacific/Kanton. When we added Enderbury in 1993, we did not know that it is uninhabited and that Kanton (population two dozen) is the only inhabited location in that timezone. The old name is now a backward-compatility link. Changes to past timestamps Correct many pre-1993 transitions, fixing entries originally derived from Shanks, Whitman, and Mundell. The fixes include: - Barbados: standard time was introduced in 1911, not 1932; and DST was observed in 1942-1944 - Cook Islands: In 1899 they switched from east to west of GMT, celebrating Christmas for two days. They (and Niue) switched to standard time in 1952, not 1901. - Guyana: corrected LMT for Georgetown; the introduction of standard time in 1911, not 1915; and corrections to 1975 and 1992 transitions - Kanton: uninhabited before 1937-08-31 - Niue: only observed -11:20 from 1952 through 1964, then went to -11 instead of -11:30 - Portugal: DST was observed in 1950 - Tonga: corrected LMT; the introduction of standard time in 1945, not 1901; and corrections to the transition from +12:20 to +13 in 1961, not 1941 Additional fixes to entries in the 'backzone' file include: - Enderbury: inhabited only 1860/1885 and 1938-03-06/1942-02-09 - The Gambia: 1933 and 1942 transitions - Malawi: several 1911 through 1925 transitions - Sierra Leone: several 1913 through 1941 transitions, and DST was NOT observed in 1957 through 1962 (Thanks to P Chan, Michael Deckers, Alexander Krivenyshev and Alois Treindl.) Merge more location-based Zones whose timestamps agree since 1970, as pre-1970 timestamps are out of scope. This is part of a process that has been ongoing since 2013. This does not affect post-1970 timestamps, and timezone historians who build with 'make PACKRATDATA=backzone' should see no changes to pre-1970 timestamps. When merging, keep the most-populous location's data, and move data for other locations to 'backzone' with a backward link in 'backward'. For example, move America/Creston data to 'backzone' with a link in 'backward' from America/Phoenix because the two timezones' timestamps agree since 1970; this change affects some pre-1968 timestamps in America/Creston because Creston and Phoenix disagreed before 1968. The affected Zones are Africa/Accra, America/Atikokan, America/Blanc-Sablon, America/Creston, America/Curacao, America/Nassau, America/Port_of_Spain, Antarctica/DumontDUrville, and Antarctica/Syowa. Changes to maintenance procedure The new file SECURITY covers how to report security-related bugs. Several backward-compatibility links have been moved to the 'backward' file. These links, which range from Africa/Addis_Ababa to Pacific/Saipan, are only for compatibility with now-obsolete guidelines suggesting an entry for every ISO 3166 code. The intercontinental convenience links Asia/Istanbul and Europe/Nicosia have also been moved to 'backward'. Changes to code zic now creates each output file or link atomically, possibly by creating a temporary file and then renaming it. This avoids races where a TZ setting would temporarily stop working while zic was installing a replacement file or link. zic -L no longer omits the POSIX TZ string in its output. Starting with 2020a, zic -L truncated its output according to the "Expires" directive or "#expires" comment in the leapseconds file. The resulting TZif files omitted daylight saving transitions after the leap second table expired, which led to far less-accurate predictions of times after the expiry. Although future timestamps cannot be converted accurately in the presence of leap seconds, it is more accurate to convert near-future timestamps with a few seconds error than with an hour error, so zic -L no longer truncates output in this way. Instead, when zic -L is given the "Expires" directive, it now outputs the expiration by appending a no-change entry to the leap second table. Although this should work well with most TZif readers, it does not conform to Internet RFC 8536 and some pickier clients (including tzdb 2017c through 2021a) reject it, so "Expires" directives are currently disabled by default. To enable them, set the EXPIRES_LINE Makefile variable. If a TZif file uses this new feature it is marked with a new TZif version number 4, a format intended to be documented in a successor to RFC 8536. zic -L LEAPFILE -r @LO no longer generates an invalid TZif file that omits leap second information for the range LO..B when LO falls between two leap seconds A and B. Instead, it generates a TZif version 4 file that represents the previously-missing information. The TZif reader now allows the leap second table to begin with a correction other than -1 or +1, and to contain adjacent transitions with equal corrections. This supports TZif version 4. The TZif reader now lets leap seconds occur less than 28 days apart. This supports possible future TZif extensions. Fix bug that caused 'localtime' etc. to crash when TZ was set to a all-year DST string like "EST5EDT4,0/0,J365/25" that does not conform to POSIX but does conform to Internet RFC 8536. Fix another bug that caused 'localtime' etc. to crash when TZ was set to a POSIX-conforming but unusual TZ string like "EST5EDT4,0/0,J365/0", where almost all the year is DST. Fix yet another bug that caused 'localtime' etc. to mishandle slim TZif files containing leap seconds after the last explicit transition in the table, or when handling far-future timestamps in slim TZif files lacking leap seconds. Fix localtime misbehavior involving positive leap seconds. This change affects only behavior for "right" system time, which contains leap seconds, and only if the UT offset is not a multiple of 60 seconds when a positive leap second occurs. (No such timezone exists in tzdb, luckily.) Without the fix, the timestamp was ambiguous during a positive leap second. With the fix, any seconds occurring after a positive leap second and within the same localtime minute are counted through 60, not through 59; their UT offset (tm_gmtoff) is the same as before. Here is how the fix affects timestamps in a timezone with UT offset +01:23:45 (5025 seconds) and with a positive leap second at 1972-06-30 23:59:60 UTC (78796800): time_t without the fix with the fix 78796800 1972-07-01 01:23:45 1972-07-01 01:23:45 (leap second) 78796801 1972-07-01 01:23:45 1972-07-01 01:23:46 ... 78796815 1972-07-01 01:23:59 1972-07-01 01:23:60 78796816 1972-07-01 01:24:00 1972-07-01 01:24:00 Fix an unlikely bug that caused 'localtime' etc. to misbehave if civil time changes a few seconds before time_t wraps around, when leap seconds are enabled. Fix bug in zic -r; in some cases, the dummy time type after the last time transition disagreed with the TZ string, contrary to Internet RFC 8563 section 3.3. Fix a bug with 'zic -r @X' when X is a negative leap second that has a nonnegative correction. Without the fix, the output file was truncated so that X appeared to be a positive leap second. Fix a similar, even-less-likely bug when truncating at a positive leap second that has a nonpositive correction. zic -r now reports an error if given rolling leap seconds, as this usage has never generally worked and is evidently unused. zic now generates a POSIX-conforming TZ string for TZif files where all-year DST is predicted for the indefinite future. For example, for all-year Eastern Daylight Time, zic now generates "XXX3EDT4,0/0,J365/23" where it previously generated "EST5EDT,0/0,J365/25" or "". (Thanks to Michael Deckers for noting the possibility of POSIX conformance.) zic.c no longer requires sys/wait.h (thanks to spazmodius for noting it wasn't needed). When reading slim TZif files, zdump no longer mishandles leap seconds on the rare platforms where time_t counts leap seconds, fixing a bug introduced in 2014g. zdump -v now outputs timestamps at boundaries of what localtime and gmtime can represent, instead of the less-useful timestamps one day after the minimum and one day before the maximum. (Thanks to Arthur David Olson for prototype code, and to Manuela Friedrich for debugging help.) zdump's -c and -t options are now consistently inclusive for the lower time bound and exclusive for the upper. Formerly they were inconsistent. (Confusion noted by Martin Burnicki.) Changes to build procedure You can now compile with -DHAVE_MALLOC_ERRNO=0 to port to non-POSIX hosts where malloc doesn't set errno. (Problem reported by Jan Engelhardt.) Changes to documentation tzfile.5 better matches a draft successor to RFC 8536 <https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-murchison-rfc8536bis/01/>. Here are links to the release files: https://www.iana.org/time-zones/repository/releases/tzcode2021b.tar.gz https://www.iana.org/time-zones/repository/releases/tzdata2021b.tar.gz https://www.iana.org/time-zones/repository/releases/tzdb-2021b.tar.lz The following convenience links are also available, although they may point to the previous release until the relevant caches are refreshed: https://www.iana.org/time-zones/repository/tzcode-latest.tar.gz https://www.iana.org/time-zones/repository/tzdata-latest.tar.gz https://www.iana.org/time-zones/repository/tzdb-latest.tar.lz Links are also available via plain HTTP, and via FTP from ftp://ftp.iana.org/tz/releases with the same basenames as above. Each release file has a GPG signature, which can be retrieved by appending ".asc" to the above URLs. Copies of these signatures are appended to this message. This release corresponds to commit 9ffa3f6e5019dfa7cfb5c0e4e8a84fa95adec704 dated 2021-09-24 16:23:00 -0700 and tagged '2021b' in the development GitHub repository at <https://github.com/eggert/tz>. Here are the SHA-512 checksums for the release files: 00fca7508cfbc42123065fe8087397c9dd2acbdda96f3bb0936187825348cf13538f1893f2d02bd8bfa3465427ca7a9a65451baffe39889bc58ba0a77a047806 tzcode2021b.tar.gz ca61d64af5ae791f337533c09d2b4f7caa645ecab7b9d13e9bcafc47c7c68535abe7c103c56bbd41d6bd913a8607f9c5187c8ce8a91b4891a750a643f89c8b51 tzdata2021b.tar.gz 326fb99666c8d5bb798a9c24d2869307620dce918d47fbedd7f765c91eb35ea44bf776f43cb00cde1944884150232ac6dcdc0194a0364e2d28f6470691cf9177 tzdb-2021b.tar.lz Here are the GPG digital signatures for the release files: -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- iQIzBAABCgAdFiEEfjeSqdis99YzvBWI7ZfpDmKqfjQFAmFOX/wACgkQ7ZfpDmKq fjRKwA//RVH1mmf13Uz99KBQZMc/meVaYT1YSpMqilocZo1w+i+Omai7Aw/r9u1e lnwLQukqjpCH4TJWdq8VuloL5ojN1ImoZuIRYECWRHOShxMaS9DLkPRr4qA9Fxic hladneiIglVrnzQbG4pH0Vnu9Qakb6I+1um8lCNiJHng84y5KAOIcZu1m9O+A1F1 bdik8Ddxc4qBluUvcq9n9aqWSgDBvIyCYik6bOo3lOd5zP1rcjSr8VJ+15cAkH4X hU/igj9qloyqAmoOyJOzIIwv63T3Xg63rH/V2hJWyux54ayP4Kt8nZqLYA9V8gFI V/HL5qNafSYEqguO2H3hTwURc3Utini8Oa2Ou89Ih0hkO+nySacc0ZnhaunmX7Ip D5Oj6A8kssG0Uj5fZqpqUp1FeRbziAinSdwTOpRxdkdeHI6tfS0XVnRvRiFATfTu oh9107e3okwKAb2UPJtr8Oev0uU8rz8+EorN9/PqJv0n2c3I69NUv6TudFVHM8uB lwG3hUNtWWYpK/rzwX8AQkwTrOHMN3VJ94T8xaTm13/jtk6R/+GgSjXKC2C9XZG6 5uvi6et06WnRVRO+V5TwnQdfY85pe5nqRDLeo0clxdkAvx6fslLpz9YNacLV/Gn8 0UIGt9CBKjE+PU1F5w+O/5btA/1aTojuSpKscdzgQIzXTfDlTZo= =+McC -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- iQIzBAABCgAdFiEEfjeSqdis99YzvBWI7ZfpDmKqfjQFAmFOX/0ACgkQ7ZfpDmKq fjRYmg/9H3rMpV7uQdd+G2K0wybdzTH6vJiNQClWE1+wqCPh/L3e8kCbPIjSo7MF SFV/Pu4EDb9kjeA2ruEMYlLnpg5nTP7dYfFRsRDcQJ5Yw70luNImm1ipUkKr9o5Q oQqYFKzxvB0G1rE+/gMaxmCHtGaJnv0DEChhmAS5U4j48z71Fn3+UJIU9XPEaODD U1Fw62xDsxIlFKjZ9UvilhlVRMnnP5nK9hjrsFKn7OGbxYvkdaRoK5f3M+G5nGXh L9nZcE0cd/7zhD3+wlttcH+xw3b+5P+7sxMhucoWQXEl3KyIklh97fi7jzHBHz+s DRYLZv/yPoEp94QyCfaYdvWL/i4OX4/9YnXK3ruXDcEV2y8Zl7Wc70Ihxk3I2XAb S4YeMcb30uls93QUdSmuhpEEUWrS5e45OnPy9RnT/VnpCalxsukudSNRzuvivKZn TsPpf90VUtI9ncLZ4l7OoNVXSj5pJ6DS+V1nCesEQyfyFnFvgK/rogCZ0yt+Cosp zaXwBtGyOWwWsGgXHGdJoiQqt/FF8o387EL95vpFr9BRSdSQoKd6K9RrRIH9fuy/ nnpaksD86fx+WbdLMtbHzsZgCqL1RTGO+kc35Qlr3vqH02UAZiwC9l3DHS9SA01c MGDy9zaiLsL/8/lUV3AP31dEP1+DY+BXvdFhIJkmIceBUf7zl0E= =PO3W -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- iQIzBAABCgAdFiEEfjeSqdis99YzvBWI7ZfpDmKqfjQFAmFOX/4ACgkQ7ZfpDmKq fjSaPg//ZlKREhlxjnstpEl6W3x4sStpUrF/Kebp62txYoCjbK22EDnw4BbE0wFh BcIBGbfxioC2+1gAjG57LK0RzTqFPPuDA69qYIZFk+xLrREISDqrGHViLGkFEgm5 jEDamuGW59UoBdnu4Klp1JAd7hvYQYEbbVaIVsrUlAL99OTyujeA6QoZdIjM43eh jx4g1P/XuHBqJEH7d9kOM5tBCRvgFhhcu/s4vOvrfFibRHRimYBuPlep5nJ88bb/ UyCQ1oYIQucWtl+DOszICl/GTmuM33FMTeAX6OrlGxwON6KPI2qNzAaQVpK1apB/ qF9dTnOVP8pygW6HkiFwNOKx4mplB2V8f1eqLT9mfdOQsEWPRuDyUvejBIr/Hmww jHF1w9TX8FxND2KQmcfZNTlKqYcw1O8Vz4m+0UnDzNuLiZAsnTBTrfnKMnVrTOFt 1K6KKK+v5y4WYu+pE36cIBM2YxITEpD+YrRr7G1ilzVgRH5FRGCJsxJu0O+BO35z rv9qVnJz0xISMJs+qSdJT8v4W4Uc6+crnHjAc7T7eAin3i3y/GY/MA44isCACmhx +Rq165laaHXnqTOgQfHhGjigJoH3JCnDYUwg6q+fMMBU2eALkOs+IbgdfVB3hoyo UOlYH/A25nuI0PrRgUKsN6N2lrfPjq3bM4twDw33BOyGJ/LN88w= =aNBd -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- PS. If your tzdata parser does not yet support negative DST offsets or times past 24:00, or if it insists on a 'pacificnew' file that is no longer present, this release's data entries can be turned into a rearguard-format tarball that should work even with these older parsers. This is intended to be a temporary transition aid for these parsers. To generate a rearguard-format tarball, obtain the full distribution as described above, and run the command 'make rearguard_tarballs' on a development host. Or you can run 'make rearguard.zi' to generate a single file that can be fed directly to a parser that works like 'zic'.

17 26

Discussion on LWN on the equity controversy
by Sanjeev Gupta Oct. 1, 2021

Oct. 1, 2021

Folks, On Linux Weekly News (which actually is about more than Linux), there is a summary and discussion on the issues raised here. LWN has a very high signal/noise ratio, I find. I have been a paid subscriber for a couple of decades. Here is a link (LWN allows subscribers to generate a link to an article for viewing by non-subscribers, all content s free after a week): https://lwn.net/SubscriberLink/870478/9dcc3764b87edfaf/ Thanks, -- Sanjeev Gupta +65 98551208 http://www.linkedin.com/in/ghane

2 1

Dropping coordinates from zone1970.tab?
by Aurelien Jarno Oct. 1, 2021

Oct. 1, 2021

Hi, With the recent changes, geographically distant locations share the same timezone and the same coordinates in the zone1970.tab file. For instance Antarctica/Syowa is a link to Asia/Riyadh and appear with the same coordinates in the zone1970.tab file, while they are more than 10000 km apart. The zone1970.tab says: "This table is intended as an aid for users, to help them select timezones appropriate for their practical needs". I have the impression that the coordinates in that table do not anymore aid users to select appropriate timezones, so I wonder if they should just get dropped. Regards, Aurelien -- Aurelien Jarno GPG: 4096R/1DDD8C9B aurelien(a)aurel32.net http://www.aurel32.net

4 16

[PATCH] Formatting of NEWS file is inconsistent in 2021b
by Paul Ganssle Sept. 30, 2021

Sept. 30, 2021

All previous entries in NEWS have a format of headings following nested levels of indentation — the release is unindented, then subheadings with a 2-space indentation, then the contents of each subhead are blocks indented with 2 spaces. In the 2021b release, there is some commentary about the release that isn't indented to the level of the "Briefly" sub-block, but also doesn't have its own heading. I think it would be preferable to put this note under a heading rather than as free-floating content at the level of other subheads. I've attached a patch to move the note into the "Briefly" subheading, though it could also be a separate heading like "Note about the 2021b release" or something. I don't really expect this format to be guaranteed or anything, but for selfish reasons I liked the consistency of the previous format since it makes it much easier for me to parse the NEWS file for repackaging in the Python tzdata format. Obviously I do not consider this any sort of contract or required interface, but since it seems unlikely that accepting this patch would increase your maintenance burden and it will decrease my maintenance burden by a decent amount in the future, I'm hoping you wont' mind accepting this patch (or a similar one). Thanks! Paul

2 1

(no subject)
by Cool Gab19 Sept. 30, 2021

Sept. 30, 2021

I knew that we do already have a time zone for Philippines, Asia/Manila called "Philippine Standard Time" with an offset of UTC+8:00 but the other one I was requesting is for the body of water surrounded inside the mainland such as the Ocean or Sea. I'm proposing to add UTC/GMT+8:15 to your database We do have an 8:30 and 8:45 zone. Why not 8:15? Plus,and if there's an specific location it's Asia/Philippines with different abbreviation "Philippine Pacific Time" with offset of UTC+8;15and will be used inside Philippine sea (not in mainland)

2 1

something wrong with 2021b zdump
by 大山俊成 Sept. 30, 2021

Sept. 30, 2021

I compared 2021b with 2021a. The result is following. I don't understand the meaning for line 3-5,20-22 of 2021b result. Is it correct ? *** tzdb-2021b $ ./zdump -v Pacific/Honolulu Pacific/Honolulu -9223372036854775808 = NULL Pacific/Honolulu -67768040609740801 = NULL Pacific/Honolulu Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 -2147481748 UT = NULL Pacific/Honolulu Thu Jan 1 10:31:25 -2147481748 UT = NULL Pacific/Honolulu Thu Jan 1 10:31:26 -2147481748 UT = Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 -2147481748 LMT isdst=0 gmtoff=-37886 Pacific/Honolulu Mon Jan 13 22:31:25 1896 UT = Mon Jan 13 11:59:59 1896 LMT isdst=0 gmtoff=-37886 Pacific/Honolulu Mon Jan 13 22:31:26 1896 UT = Mon Jan 13 12:01:26 1896 HST isdst=0 gmtoff=-37800 Pacific/Honolulu Sun Apr 30 12:29:59 1933 UT = Sun Apr 30 01:59:59 1933 HST isdst=0 gmtoff=-37800 Pacific/Honolulu Sun Apr 30 12:30:00 1933 UT = Sun Apr 30 03:00:00 1933 HDT isdst=1 gmtoff=-34200 Pacific/Honolulu Sun May 21 21:29:59 1933 UT = Sun May 21 11:59:59 1933 HDT isdst=1 gmtoff=-34200 Pacific/Honolulu Sun May 21 21:30:00 1933 UT = Sun May 21 11:00:00 1933 HST isdst=0 gmtoff=-37800 Pacific/Honolulu Mon Feb 9 12:29:59 1942 UT = Mon Feb 9 01:59:59 1942 HST isdst=0 gmtoff=-37800 Pacific/Honolulu Mon Feb 9 12:30:00 1942 UT = Mon Feb 9 03:00:00 1942 HWT isdst=1 gmtoff=-34200 Pacific/Honolulu Tue Aug 14 22:59:59 1945 UT = Tue Aug 14 13:29:59 1945 HWT isdst=1 gmtoff=-34200 Pacific/Honolulu Tue Aug 14 23:00:00 1945 UT = Tue Aug 14 13:30:00 1945 HPT isdst=1 gmtoff=-34200 Pacific/Honolulu Sun Sep 30 11:29:59 1945 UT = Sun Sep 30 01:59:59 1945 HPT isdst=1 gmtoff=-34200 Pacific/Honolulu Sun Sep 30 11:30:00 1945 UT = Sun Sep 30 01:00:00 1945 HST isdst=0 gmtoff=-37800 Pacific/Honolulu Sun Jun 8 12:29:59 1947 UT = Sun Jun 8 01:59:59 1947 HST isdst=0 gmtoff=-37800 Pacific/Honolulu Sun Jun 8 12:30:00 1947 UT = Sun Jun 8 02:30:00 1947 HST isdst=0 gmtoff=-36000 Pacific/Honolulu Wed Dec 31 23:59:59 2147485547 UT = Wed Dec 31 13:59:59 2147485547 HST isdst=0 gmtoff=-36000 Pacific/Honolulu 67768036191676800 = Wed Dec 31 14:00:00 2147485547 HST isdst=0 gmtoff=-36000 Pacific/Honolulu 67768036191712799 = Wed Dec 31 23:59:59 2147485547 HST isdst=0 gmtoff=-36000 Pacific/Honolulu 67768036191712800 = NULL Pacific/Honolulu 9223372036854775807 = NULL *** tzdb-2021a $ ./zdump -v Pacific/Honolulu Pacific/Honolulu -9223372036854775808 = NULL Pacific/Honolulu -9223372036854689408 = NULL Pacific/Honolulu Mon Jan 13 22:31:25 1896 UT = Mon Jan 13 11:59:59 1896 LMT isdst=0 gmtoff=-37886 Pacific/Honolulu Mon Jan 13 22:31:26 1896 UT = Mon Jan 13 12:01:26 1896 HST isdst=0 gmtoff=-37800 Pacific/Honolulu Sun Apr 30 12:29:59 1933 UT = Sun Apr 30 01:59:59 1933 HST isdst=0 gmtoff=-37800 Pacific/Honolulu Sun Apr 30 12:30:00 1933 UT = Sun Apr 30 03:00:00 1933 HDT isdst=1 gmtoff=-34200 Pacific/Honolulu Sun May 21 21:29:59 1933 UT = Sun May 21 11:59:59 1933 HDT isdst=1 gmtoff=-34200 Pacific/Honolulu Sun May 21 21:30:00 1933 UT = Sun May 21 11:00:00 1933 HST isdst=0 gmtoff=-37800 Pacific/Honolulu Mon Feb 9 12:29:59 1942 UT = Mon Feb 9 01:59:59 1942 HST isdst=0 gmtoff=-37800 Pacific/Honolulu Mon Feb 9 12:30:00 1942 UT = Mon Feb 9 03:00:00 1942 HWT isdst=1 gmtoff=-34200 Pacific/Honolulu Tue Aug 14 22:59:59 1945 UT = Tue Aug 14 13:29:59 1945 HWT isdst=1 gmtoff=-34200 Pacific/Honolulu Tue Aug 14 23:00:00 1945 UT = Tue Aug 14 13:30:00 1945 HPT isdst=1 gmtoff=-34200 Pacific/Honolulu Sun Sep 30 11:29:59 1945 UT = Sun Sep 30 01:59:59 1945 HPT isdst=1 gmtoff=-34200 Pacific/Honolulu Sun Sep 30 11:30:00 1945 UT = Sun Sep 30 01:00:00 1945 HST isdst=0 gmtoff=-37800 Pacific/Honolulu Sun Jun 8 12:29:59 1947 UT = Sun Jun 8 01:59:59 1947 HST isdst=0 gmtoff=-37800 Pacific/Honolulu Sun Jun 8 12:30:00 1947 UT = Sun Jun 8 02:30:00 1947 HST isdst=0 gmtoff=-36000 Pacific/Honolulu 9223372036854689407 = NULL Pacific/Honolulu 9223372036854775807 = NULL ---- Toshinari Ohyama

2 2

Merged 1970+ time zones should always return -1 pre-1970
by Brian Inglis Sept. 29, 2021

Sept. 29, 2021

I think for all zones with data merged prior to 1970, the data and API should always return *-1* for all times prior to 1970-01-01 00:00:00Z, as anything else is inaccurate or a kludge. Arbitrary disposition of any valid historical data is itself really political, for ease of administration, not really technical. I firmly believe that no decision on the list has ever been made on a basis of in-/equity or un-/fairness, as those would be political decisions, and we have bent over backwards for years to avoid any such appearance never mind actuality, devoting probably the majority of the volume of posts and the majority of the volume of words to such discussions. I have always taken the position that any churn not necessitated by changes on the ground (or government offices) is detrimental to the project and the database, and places a massive burden on downstreams who make good use of that data, including the CLDR and ICU projects, astronomy and astrology applications, all facets of the transportation industry, the databases they maintain, and the storage of what was the truth at a previous point in time, and future application uses of that previously stored data. Any such churn should be mediated by the request the list makes of time zone decision makers: to provide adequate notice of such changes, at least six months, preferably longer. I can only believe that the adminstrators of this database are under some form of political pressure (perhaps /only/ "vitriol in private email", which appears to be nearing the norm in certain arenas) to dispose of some data to achieve some misguided form of "equity" and "fairness", in response to some misguided perception of "inequity" and "unfairness" that is not apparent to members of this mailing list, and from the reactions, nor does it appear to have been adequately or clearly expressed in a form that members of this list can readily comprehend, nor is it clearly exactly when these political terms entered the discussion, nor what business they have being in it. As in any project where decisions are questionable, it is necessary to back off making any! The proposers of drastic changes need to enunciate clearly: * exactly what technical problem they perceive, and why it appears to be a problem; * some alternative options for technical solutions and/or approaches to address the technical problem; * how each alternative option for technical solutions and/or approaches to address the problem will satisfy the majority of needs of the majority of the stakeholders, and impacts on those unsatisfied; * why they think the option they propose to adopt is the best and most comprehensive solution to address the problem, and satisfies the most needs of the most stakeholders. This is standard practice in most commercial projects. It is often used when stakeholders can not quickly make a decision, decide on policy, or easily change policy. It allows development to proceed in parallel on all the offered options. When stakeholders finally decide or act, perhaps months along the timeframe nearing release, the selected option can be preferentially enabled, possibly with only minor tweaks or just data changes, and quickly regression tested to ensure the effect is precisely as desired. Of course, the best decision to satisfy the most needs of the most stakeholders is often the decision to just say "NO !" ;^> -- Take care. Thanks, Brian Inglis, Calgary, Alberta, Canada This email may be disturbing to some readers as it contains too much technical detail. Reader discretion is advised. [Data in binary units and prefixes, physical quantities in SI.]

9 15

Using the tzdb: What's actually changed
by Watson Ladd Sept. 29, 2021

Sept. 29, 2021

Dear all, I see lots and lots of people who seem to be running applications that care about pre 1970 timestamps and don't use backzones, or seem to ignore links. Well, if you ignore links you deserve what you get: it's been documented that zones may become links. The size of tzdb has already caused problems for some embedded devices. Post-1970 correctness only strikes me as very reasonable. Applications that need more should use backzones, and this has been true for years. If you care about the truth of what time something happened, and it was recorded in local time, and the zone that it was in might need to get split in the future, and that split could change when the time was or other times you care about then the database isn't your problem, reality is. I see a lot of complaints, and very few details about the applications affected. Which makes me skeptical they actually exist. Remember, you're only affected if you deal with pre-1970 timestamps. Sincerely, Watson -- Astra mortemque praestare gradatim

4 5

[PATCH] Port better to >64-bit platforms
by Paul Eggert Sept. 29, 2021

Sept. 29, 2021

* zic.c (limitrange, writezone): Use max_time instead of ZIC_MAX when dealing with timestamps that would go into the TZif file. The distinction matters only on very unusual platforms where int_fast64_t is wider than 64 bits. --- zic.c | 4 ++-- 1 file changed, 2 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-) diff --git a/zic.c b/zic.c index c6feb8b..224cc22 100644 --- a/zic.c +++ b/zic.c @@ -1990,7 +1990,7 @@ limitrange(struct timerange r, bool locut, zic_t lo, zic_t hi, /* Omit ordinary and leap second transitions greater than HI + 1. */ - if (hi < ZIC_MAX) { + if (hi < max_time) { while (0 < r.count && hi + 1 < ats[r.base + r.count - 1]) r.count--; while (0 < r.leapcount && hi + 1 < trans[r.leapbase + r.leapcount - 1]) @@ -2205,7 +2205,7 @@ writezone(const char *const name, const char *const string, char version, error(_("too many transition times")); thistimelim = thistimei + thistimecnt; - if (thistimecnt && hi_time < ZIC_MAX + if (thistimecnt && hi_time < max_time && ats[thistimelim - 1] == hi_time + 1) hicut = false; memset(omittype, true, typecnt); -- 2.30.2

1 0

Request
by Cool Gab19 Sept. 29, 2021

Sept. 29, 2021

I'm proposing to add UTC/GMT+8:15? We do have an 8:30 and 8:45 zone. Why not 8:15? Plus,the GMT+8:15 if ever will be named as Anywhere on Southeast Asia Time (ASAT) (Asia/Southeast) a very usable time zone in southeast asian countries specially in zone 7 and 8.

2 1

Re: [tz] [EXTERNAL] [tz-announce] 2021b release of tz code and data available
by Paul Eggert Sept. 28, 2021

Sept. 28, 2021

On 9/28/21 5:57 AM, crdrequest(a)ups.com wrote: > I was informed that the start Jordan now starts DST on February's last FRIDAY.....NOT THURSDAY. My guess is that you're OK because your informant referred to 00:00 on February's last Friday, which in 2022 is equivalent to what we have in tzdb 2021b (namely, 24:00 on February's last Thursday). The distinction between the two rules matters only in one year out of seven, the first such year being 2024 when February ends on a Thursday. Our source for the 24:00-on-last-Thursday rule is here (in Arabic): https://petra.gov.jo/Include/InnerPage.jsp?ID=189969&lang=ar&name=news

1 0

Why 2021b needed to be issued
by Paul Eggert Sept. 28, 2021

Sept. 28, 2021

Since 2013 I've been patching tzdb by replacing Zones with Links when Links suffice according to the guidelines. These patches have not affected timestamps after 1970. I've been doing this gradually. The changes have worked without significant incident, partly because end users generally don't care about pre-1970 timestamps, and partly because the few users who do care (astrologers, mostly) know or should know that the pre-1970 Zone data entries are often wrong and even when right are typically grossly inadequate for realistic use outside the named location - this is partly why any focus on pre-1970 is out of scope for tzdb. Preparing all these patches has been a big enough job that I've been doing it gradually since I have limited time. This process was discussed on the list before it began, and although there was some objection, a consensus to move towards these goals was reached at the time. Most of this job was done before 2021a came out. The main difference in this round of patches, is that I had aimed to complete the job, in response to a user query raising equity concerns in 2021a. It is clear that the 2021a setup was not sustainable in the long term, if equity is a goal. Completing the job generated larger patches than usual, and the patches' size triggered concern that they held too many changes all at once. Also, the patches' effects on pre-1970 timestamps in (for example) Norway and Sweden have triggered concerns, much more so than similar changes made (for example) to Angola and Congo in tzdb 2014g. My own view is that we've done this before, many times, it hasn't been a problem in practice, and it's way past time to address the equity concerns as they have a good chance to really bite this project and its repackagers in the future. It's a bad look for us that so much concern about Norway and Sweden has appeared on this mailing list, even though hardly anybody seems to have cared about Angola and Congo. It'll be an even worse look if we ignore this issue weeks, months or even years after it's been made clear to us. I wrote, tested and published several concrete suggestions addressing the fairness problem. In the months since May when the fairness problem was discovered and objections to my proposed fixes were raised, no other concrete fix addressing both of these concerns has been implemented or tested, and all other suggestions made so far would have required significant work, if they would have worked at all, or would have caused more data churn than what I proposed. I realize that there are valid concerns about installing too many of these patches at once, so 2021b affects only nine Zones instead of the thirty-odd Zones in my May proposal. The idea is to do further patch sets in not-too-distant-future releases, so that the job can finally be finished. I also recognize that there are other forms of equity and fairness that should be considered, perhaps along with alternative technical solutions to the problems these patches address. With all this in mind, issuing 2021b now is a significant step toward equity in tzdb. It will let us say that we are moving toward a fair process, and will give us the opportunity and motivation to improve on that process and to address and balance the various other concerns that have recently appeared on the mailing list.

3 3

Preparing to fork tzdb
by Stephen Colebourne Sept. 27, 2021

Sept. 27, 2021

Hi all, As most of you probably know, there is a dispute about the tzdb maintainer's recent changes to merge large numbers of time-zones [1][2]. These have the effect of wiping out historic time-zone information on many locations where the data has been in tzdb for many years. It appears that there is soon to be a new release of tzdb containing these changes. In my opinion, the correct behaviour of the tzdb maintainer would be to revert the controversial changes before doing a release. In the event that the tzdb maintainer does not revert, consideration must be given to forking the project. The purpose of the fork would initially be to maintain the tzdb data set as it was prior to the dispute. This would then be released in parallel to the original tzdb to ensure that downstream projects do not each do their own thing (ie. to minimize incompatibilities downstream). Is there support for a fork? Is anyone willing to help out? Is any other group willing to sponsor tzdb (eg. CLDR or Red Hat)? Please reply to this thread with an indication of support and/or help. thanks Stephen Colebourne [1] https://mm.icann.org/pipermail/tz/2021-June/thread.html [2] https://mm.icann.org/pipermail/tz/2021-September/030372.html

31 151

Re: [tz] Preparing to fork tzdb
by dpatte Sept. 27, 2021

Sept. 27, 2021

Most people in the Americas who live outside 'america' would prefer it being 'Americas', 'North_America' or better yet, just the iso country names.Sent from my Galaxy -------- Original message --------From: Paul Eggert via tz <tz(a)iana.org> Date: 2021-09-26 20:44 (GMT-05:00) To: Brooks Harris <brooks(a)edlmax.com> Cc: Time zone mailing list <tz(a)iana.org> Subject: Re: [tz] Preparing to fork tzdb On 9/22/21 11:32 AM, Brooks Harris via tz wrote:> Olsen's original insight to use towns and cities to name time zones > turns out to be extraordinarily useful.As a historical note, the naming convention you're talking about is something I originated and contributed to tzdb in 1993. Although I began with more-complicated names like Pacific/Fiji/Suva and North_America/US/Los_Angeles, the country names (and the "North_") were more trouble than they were worth, so I removed them before sending patches for Arthur to install.One of my early emails about my idea concluded that "It looks like this will take some time." Which it has.https://mm.icann.org/pipermail/tz/1993-October/009233.html

1 0

Samoa awakes to time change confusion
by Paul Eggert Sept. 27, 2021

Sept. 27, 2021

The Samoa Observer's James Robertson reported today that much of Samoa woke up in confusion today as mobile phones, computers, and other cellular-enabled devices displayed the time as 10:00 when it was in fact 09:00. Many reportedly arrived at church early because their cell phones incorrectly sprang forward. An anonymous employee at Digicel said that Digicel hadn't been given enough notice. Vodafone Samoa apparently did not respond to media inquiry. The Observer's Marc Membrere reports tomorrow that the president of the Samoa Information Technology Association (S.I.T.A.) criticized the government for not consulting tech experts about the effect of changing DST rules with so little notice. ---- Robertson J. Nation awakes to time change confusion. Samoa Observer. 2021-09-26. https://www.samoaobserver.ws/category/samoa/92122 Membrere M. "Daylight savings change rushed: S.I.T.A." Samoa Observer. 2021-09-27. https://www.samoaobserver.ws/category/samoa/92126

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Re: [tz] [tz-announce] 2021b release of tz code and data available
by Paul Eggert Sept. 26, 2021

Sept. 26, 2021

On 9/26/21 3:38 AM, Michael H Deckers wrote: > Link America/Port_of_Spain America/Virgin > in line 755 of backzone should be converted to > Link America/St_Thomas America/Virgin That would create a link-to-a-link (America/Virgin → America/St_Thomas → America/Puerto_Rico), which would cause "make check_links" to fail. This maintainer check was put in several years ago, when some downstream software misbehaved with a link-to-a-link in one of our releases. And I suspect that even zic is not robust in the presence of arbitrary links-to-links, though I haven't tested this. I do see the semantic issue behind the change you're proposing, as America/Virgin is an old alias for America/St_Thomas. If we wanted to add support for links-to-links, I suspect someone would have to code up and test changes to zic.c, and we would definitely need to give downstream users considerable time to adjust to the change. I'm not sure it's worth it merely to support this very minor issue.

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Replacing the TZ Coordinator
by Stephen Colebourne Sept. 26, 2021

Sept. 26, 2021

The TZDB project is guided by RFC 6557. Section 4 allows the list to seek an alternate TZ coordinator where "The TZ Coordinator is not performing the function in accordance with community wishes". https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc6557.html#section-4 The RFC instructs as follows: Members of the community should raise the issue on the TZ mailing list and attempt to reach consensus on a new candidate to fulfill the role of TZ Coordinator. If rough consensus cannot be reached easily, the Area Directors of the IETF Applications Area should attempt to guide the members of the community to rough consensus. The candidate that is agreed upon by the community through rough consensus shall be presented to the IESG for confirmation. If rough consensus cannot be reached, even with guidance from the Applications Area Directors, the IESG shall use whatever means it has at its disposal to choose a candidate who in its best judgment will be able to fulfill the role of TZ Coordinator. Is there consensus on the list that a change is required? Is there a candidate willing to take on the role of TZ Coordinator? Stephen

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Some thoughts about the way forward
by Tom Lane Sept. 26, 2021

Sept. 26, 2021

A modest proposal, if I may. Let's take it as read that Paul is going to stick to his guns about the May reorganization --- he's certainly shown no willingness to do otherwise. (I do accept that there are valid reasons for that move, even if I differ as to their importance.) What do we need to do to mitigate the undesirable consequences of that reorganization? After chewing on this for awhile, it seems to me that the really fundamental undesirable consequence is going to be inconsistent received versions of tzdb. Currently, the usage of backzone seems to be quite negligible [1]. But I fear it is certain that some platforms will start using backzone, in order to placate users who are negatively affected by the May changes. That will mean that those platforms will start showing different results from platforms that don't do that, for all zones in backzone (both old and new). I rate this outcome as disastrous on multiple levels, not least being the damage to the credibility of the tzdb project itself. To avoid that, I already proposed [2] that we drop the links in "backward" that are overwritten by backzone. This would have the effect that a non-backzone build would not offer those zone names at all, instead of presenting them as having the data content of some other zone. This would eliminate the issue of different platforms presenting different results for the "same" zone. If we do that, it seems probable that instead of some platforms adopting backzone, nearly all will, because otherwise their users will moan about their favorite zone being gone. I therefore further suggest that we make use of backzone be the default. Anybody who wants a "lean and mean" build can leave it out --- but they'll be presenting a clean subset of the data seen in the default build, rather than data that is different and known to be less good in some cases. This approach suggests that we make some adjustments in how we think about things. I think we ought to rename backzone to "extended" or something like that. We'd view tzdb as offering a "base" set of zones that are considered in-scope per the rule about different-since-1970, plus an "extended" set of zones that are out-of-scope and are not maintained as carefully as the base. (This really is just applying different terminology to the existing understanding about how backzone is maintained.) The primary advantage of doing it this way, rather than the way we're handling backzone now, is that it's a lot clearer to end users what the status of the extended zones is, and we're not confusingly offering two different versions of those zones. Assuming we make these changes before shipping git tip in its present form, we could expect that users in zones affected by the May changes would see no actual change in their TZ data. There would be a loss of data stability for users in the zones that were moved to backzone previously. I'm not terribly thrilled about that, but it seems like the least amount of damage to the least amount of people, compared to any other likely outcome. We could hopefully placate those users by pointing out that (1) the new data, while likely not perfect, is almost certainly a net improvement over what was shipped before, and (2) this is effectively reverting these zones to their pre-2015 state. We'd thus be acknowledging that the original implementation of backzone was a mistake, and undoing it with the least amount of side-effects we can manage. I shall now retire and wait to be shot at ... regards, tom lane [1] https://mm.icann.org/pipermail/tz/2021-September/030572.html [2] https://mm.icann.org/pipermail/tz/2021-September/030632.html

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Re: [tz] Why 2021b needed to be issued
by dpatte Sept. 26, 2021

Sept. 26, 2021

Agreed.Sent from my Galaxy -------- Original message --------From: Stephen Colebourne via tz <tz(a)iana.org> Date: 2021-09-25 12:40 (GMT-05:00) To: Time zone mailing list <tz(a)iana.org> Subject: Re: [tz] Why 2021b needed to be issued "On Sat, 25 Sept 2021 at 06:23, Paul Eggert via tz <tz(a)iana.org> wrote:> The main difference in this round of patches, is that I had aimed to> complete the job, in response to a user query raising equity concerns in> 2021a. It is clear that the 2021a setup was not sustainable in the long> term, if equity is a goal.Equity is not a formal goal of the project. It is not documented oragreed in the RFC nor in the theory file. Your opinion of what isequitable does not align with mine.> Completing the job generated larger patches than usual, and the patches'> size triggered concern that they held too many changes all at once.Having read hundreds of emails over the past few months, I don't think*anyone* expressed the concern of patch size or too many changes.> Also, the patches' effects on pre-1970 timestamps in (for example)> Norway and Sweden have triggered concerns, much more so than similar> changes made (for example) to Angola and Congo in tzdb 2014g.It may not be pleasant to accept, but I would strongly argue thatplaces like Norway, Denmark, Sweden and the Netherlands are much moresignificant to the world economy than Angola and Congo. You simplycannot judge the impact based on what has happened before. Inaddition, the pre-1970 data being removed now is much betterresearched than much of what has previously been removed.> I also recognize that there are other forms of equity and fairness that> should be considered, perhaps along with alternative technical solutions> to the problems these patches address.Thank you for the acknowledgement.In summary, I am livid with the high-handed approach you have takenwrt the release of 2021b. Despite near unanimity of the mailing listrequesting you to release 2021a+MinimalChanges, you progressed 9 outof the 30 link merges based on a rationale that you acknowledge is notuniversally accepted.I believe your actions are against the spirit of the RFC, if not theletter (as decided by the IESG), as you "SHOULD take into accountviews expressed on the mailing list".I will now take a break from this matter for a long weekend, as thelist has requested. Later next week I will try to start a positivediscussion as to what the next steps can be.Stephen

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Atlantic/Jan_Mayen, Arctic/Longyearbyen and Europe/Berlin
by Chris Walton Sept. 25, 2021

Sept. 25, 2021

Paul, 1. For the record, I detest the practice of linking zones across different ISO-3166 regions. Forcing one country to be associated with another country is politically and culturally offensive. 2. In 2021b you have: Atlantic/Jan_Mayen linked to Europe/Berlin. Arctic/Longyearbyen linked to Europe/Oslo. This seems inconsistent to me. If you insist on keeping Atlantic/Jan_Mayen linked to Europe/Berlin, then I think that the Europe/Berlin entry in zone1970.tab should show "DE,SJ" instead of just "DE". -chris

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proposal for new tzdb versions
by Paul Eggert Sept. 25, 2021

Sept. 25, 2021

In light of the previous discussions and the fact that we need a new release very soon, I propose the following: * We release 2021b pretty much as-is (with the usual release administrivia such as updating NEWS). * We also generate a separate 2021a1 version, which is like 2021a except with the Samoa change that is prompting 2021b. This version recognizes the concerns about the number of changes to pre-1970 timestamps in 2021b. I'll do this by publishing a patch to 2021a, along with a patched tarball, on my website at UCLA. Although this is effectively a fork in the short term, the idea is that it's a small fork with the intent that we'll work together to combine the two approaches in later releases, taking the abovementioned concerns into account. There is precedent for this approach, in that when there were compatibility problems with earlier releases, I generated alternate tarballs to support downstream users while they were adapting their database readers. Although the two cases are not the same, generating an alternate distribution also has the benefit of giving us time. Although I haven't had time to read all the discussions so far (and email is still rolling in), I will try to take these discussions into account when writing the NEWS entries for the two versions. After the versions are published and the dust has settled, I hope that we can incorporate some of the suggestions that have been made, as we will then have time to implement and test them. I don't want this followup discussion to take a looong time, though, as the goal is to combine the two approaches soon. Since Samoa's rules change in less than 72 hours I plan to generate these new versions soon.

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Re: [tz] Some thoughts about the way forward
by Kerry Shetline Sept. 24, 2021

Sept. 24, 2021

I’ve written code myself that depends on regex patterns (4 digits followed by one or two letters) to match timezone version numbers, so I definitely would not want to see the version formatting change, at least not abruptly and without plenty of lead time before the first version numbers in any new or modified format appear. > Specifically, this is what is documented and this is what our software supports: > >> Since 1996, each version has been a four-digit year followed by lower-case letter (a through z, then za through zz, then zza through zzz, and so on) > > Deborah

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