- tz - lists.iana.org

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

Feb. 4, 2000

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

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

Feb. 4, 2000

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

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

Feb. 3, 2000

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

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

Jan. 31, 2000

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

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

Jan. 31, 2000

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

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

Jan. 31, 2000

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

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

Jan. 29, 2000

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

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

Jan. 28, 2000

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

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DST table
by Oscar van Vlijmen Jan. 25, 2000

Jan. 25, 2000

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

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

Jan. 24, 2000

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

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