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Re: [tz] draft of change summary for next tz release
by David Patte ₯ Sept. 21, 2013

Sept. 21, 2013

And some of us prefer having at least one zone for each ISO 3166-1 country. Several of us understood the old theory file to require this. 1970 is an arbitrary computer geek cutoff point, with not much meaning to general time zone history.

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Jordan permanently on UTC+3?
by Paul Eggert Sept. 20, 2013

Sept. 20, 2013

I looked for hints about what Jordan's going to do with its clocks next month, and found this article from February: Cancelling winter saved Jordan $7 million Petra News Agency 2013-02-20 11:34 UTC http://www.albawaba.com/business/jordan-winter-electricity--472005 Currently the tz database is guessing that Jordan will revert to UTC+2 next month, but if this article is any indication they'll stay at UTC+3 indefinitely, which means the obvious tz patch (already mentioned in the 2012-10-15 comments) would be appropriate.

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Tocantins in Brazil probably not observing DST this season
by Steffen Thorsen Sept. 20, 2013

Sept. 20, 2013

According to this article, Tocantins in Brazil is very likely not to observe DST from October. The decree has not yet been issued, so the decision may still be revoked, but we assume it is very likely because it has been announced by the congressman and DST is so unpopular there. http://conexaoto.com.br/2013/09/18/ministerio-confirma-que-tocantins-esta-f… We will keep this article updated when this is confirmed: http://www.timeanddate.com/news/time/brazil-starts-dst-2013.html Best regards, Steffen Thorsen - timeanddate.com

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Getting close to new release: testing, testing, ...
by Paul Eggert Sept. 20, 2013

Sept. 20, 2013

We need to release a new version soon, because of Fiji. I did further testing and it appears that the recent changes to add meta-information to the zic output won't fly, because they're incompatible with the GNU C library on Ubuntu 12.04. So we need to rethink that feature. There's no rush to introduce it, so let's omit it from the next release. Also, the -t option recently added to tzselect seems like it will be superseded by the tzwinnow approach, whenever we get that working and stable, so for now I think I'd rather omit this. There are a few other problems found by "make public", mostly links that were in the wrong files. I'll post proposed changes soon. If other people could do some testing that'd be nice. You can run "make public". The output should contain the following diagnostics: warning: "antarctica", line 318: Antarctica/Palmer: pre-2013 clients may mishandle distant timestamps warning: "asia", line 1412: 24:00 not handled by pre-1998 versions of zic warning: "asia", line 2332: 24:00 not handled by pre-1998 versions of zic warning: "asia", line 1026: Asia/Jerusalem: pre-2013 clients may mishandle distant timestamps (rule from "asia", line 1021) warning: "asia", line 1315: Asia/Amman: pre-1994 clients may mishandle distant timestamps warning: "asia", line 2016: Asia/Gaza: pre-2013 clients may mishandle distant timestamps warning: "asia", line 2347: Asia/Hebron: pre-2013 clients may mishandle distant timestamps warning: "australasia", line 269: Pacific/Fiji: pre-2013 clients may mishandle distant timestamps warning: "europe", line 998: America/Godthab: pre-2013 clients may mishandle distant timestamps warning: "southamerica", line 1141: America/Santiago: pre-2013 clients may mishandle distant timestamps warning: "southamerica", line 1313: Pacific/Easter: pre-2013 clients may mishandle distant timestamps along with a very long section that starts as follows, which shows that the tz code is still broken on platforms with unsigned 32-bit time_t (this is a longstanding problem). checking uint32_t zones ... --- tzpublic/int64_t.out 2013-09-11 02:43:50.871343089 -0700 +++ tzpublic/uint32_t.out 2013-09-11 02:43:55.907343185 -0700 @@ -210,278 +210,6 @@ Europe/Andorra Sun Mar 29 01:00:00 2037 UT = Sun Mar 29 03:00:00 2037 CEST isdst=1 Europe/Andorra Sun Oct 25 00:59:59 2037 UT = Sun Oct 25 02:59:59 2037 CEST isdst=1 Europe/Andorra Sun Oct 25 01:00:00 2037 UT = Sun Oct 25 02:00:00 2037 CET isdst=0 -Europe/Andorra Sun Mar 28 00:59:59 2038 UT = Sun Mar 28 01:59:59 2038 CET isdst=0 -Europe/Andorra Sun Mar 28 01:00:00 2038 UT = Sun Mar 28 03:00:00 2038 CEST isdst=1 -Europe/Andorra Sun Oct 31 00:59:59 2038 UT = Sun Oct 31 02:59:59 2038 CEST isdst=1

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Historical data
by David Braverman Sept. 20, 2013

Sept. 20, 2013

I've followed the discussions about historical data with interest. I would like to keep historical data in the tzdb, and I understand why I'm in the minority. But I wonder if there couldn't be a compromise? We've implemented a .NET library that uses the tzdb by interpreting[1] the database rather than by compiling it. So for us, we only deploy the tzdb text files that the customer cares about. Some customers are strictly North American concerns, so we only put the northamerica file in their configuration; others need the whole database of 500-some zones. I think other posters have suggested separating pre-1970 data out into a separate file or file set. This would be perfect for our implementation. For the zic implementation, it seems like compilation is an all-or-nothing deal right now. But would it be difficult to create a build script that includes the historical data to the zic package if someone needs it, in addition to the post-1970 build script? Sorry if the question seems naïve. I just think there's room to compromise here. David Braverman Inner Drive Technology Chicago [1] The tzdb files actually get compiled down to an intermediate set of objects at application start, then live on in a singleton. The process takes about a second on an Azure Extra-Small instance. More info here: https://www.inner-drive.com/Demo/Timezones.aspx

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Data changes for v2013e
by Stephen Colebourne Sept. 20, 2013

Sept. 20, 2013

To better help everyone understand the data changes in 2013e, I've run a tool to analyse them and produce nice coloured git diffs. Changes from 2013d to 2013e https://github.com/jodastephen/tzdiff/commit/57aac13605f184a46f74d22f7dddc9… Lines in green are new added data, lines in red are deletions. >From a purely data perspective, the majority of 2013e changes are LMT based. The largest change is to McMurdo/South_Pole. Previous changes for reference: Changes from 2013c to 2013d https://github.com/jodastephen/tzdiff/commit/db93687fe0d5a6bb4a8ee9dd2d81e9… Changes from 2013b to 2013c https://github.com/jodastephen/tzdiff/commit/d145f2ae94c0587aba378920b44227… Changes from 2013a to 2013b https://github.com/jodastephen/tzdiff/commit/639b044db3e3c24d98b0cf5a6fba85… Stephen

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While searching for Vaduz info...
by Andrew Paprocki Sept. 19, 2013

Sept. 19, 2013

I was hunting around for information when the Vaduz change was proposed and while I didn't find anything related to Vaduz specifically, I came across these very nice historical German documents that may be of use to others. The first from a watch-makers journal in 1916 with many pages discussing the adoption of "summer time" that year and reservations about it. There are mentions of those who proposed the legislation, etc. for anyone who can read German and feels like digging through the various pages talking about it. This is the most relevant page (but there are many others -- search for Sommerzeit): (Page 131) http://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=nyp.33433090896915;view=1up;seq=145 The second discusses WET / CET in terms of railroads and contains an interesting snippet regarding CET being authorized since 1 Feb 1920 as well as Netherlands being 20 minutes offset from GMT. I can't find mention of 1 Feb 1920 in the database, so I'm not sure what it is referring to or if this is new/known information. Also, the database says that railroads did not observe the GMT+0:20 in Netherlands, yet this is a railroad journal specifically mentioning it. (Page 84) http://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=njp.32101066879451;view=1up;seq=98 Just leaving these here since some may be interested. Make sure the links leave you on the page # indicated -- sometimes Hathi jumps to an incorrect page. -Andrew

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Re: [tz] tz Digest, Vol 24, Issue 75
by Sterling Udell Sept. 17, 2013

Sept. 17, 2013

> > Can I suggest that we split this into two updates, the first containing > only the Fiji change, and the second with everything else? +1

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Re: [tz] Pulling the data apart ...
by random832＠fastmail.us Sept. 17, 2013

Sept. 17, 2013

On Mon, Sep 16, 2013, at 14:32, Tobias Conradi wrote: > On Mon, Sep 16, 2013 at 7:40 PM, <random832(a)fastmail.us> wrote: > > People don't use the term "separated" for that. > > Except those that do, Huh? Surely you're not claiming that the format _actually_ separates them with no space between them. Go ahead and delete every space from your files, see if zic accepts them. > e.g. tz documentation writers that use "any > number" instead of "one or more". I assert that by "number" they meant "natural number" rather than "integer" (or complex number, or rational number, or real number). The fact that it is a number of characters implies it is an integer. The fact that it is a number of characters that separates something implies it is nonzero and positive. "number" by itself is defined by context. No-one would imagine that this includes non-integers or negative numbers or complex numbers. Not even in your wildest fantasies did you claim there may be sqrt(2)+pi*i spaces, even though that is a number.

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tz mailing list guidelines
by Paul Eggert Sept. 17, 2013

Sept. 17, 2013

Now's as good a time as any to say what guidelines are used when discarding or blocking contributions to the tz mailing list. The tz mailing list discusses proposals for updates that would improve the time zone code and data. When contributions to the mailing list, on balance, harm the project more than help it, it is often advisable to discard them. Examples of abuse include (but are not limited to) spamming, commercial advertising, personal attacks, repetitive or out-of-scope topics, disinformation, sock puppetry, block evasion, copyright violations, and legal threats. An abusive mailing list correspondent should be blocked, with contributions discarded. The length of the block should depend on the severity of the offenses and the estimated future likelihood that future contributions would help more than harm. Correspondents whose contributions consist entirely of spam, for example, should be blocked permanently right away. Correspondents who make significant useful contributions should be treated more leniently: their first block should be for a period of a day to a week; the second, a month to six months; and later blocks, one year to permanent.

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