I happen to like the new proposal, although I don't really have much influence in the matter. The new proposal (appears to) restore the recent status-quo, and gives us clear guidance on how to move forward. I also agree that politics cannot be removed from the process. Politics is a fact of life, and while we don't necessarily need to embrace or encourage it, we certainly need to recognize and deal with it. -----Original Message----- From: tz-bounces@iana.org [mailto:tz-bounces@iana.org] On Behalf Of Stephen Colebourne Sent: Thursday, August 29, 2013 12:31 PM To: Time Zone Mailing List Subject: Re: [tz] Proposal for new rules On 29 August 2013 20:17, Paul Eggert <eggert@cs.ucla.edu> wrote:
I do not favor adding rules that would place further political constraints on the tz database's contents. We already have too many problems with political issues that are unrelated to the core problem of timekeeping, and we should strive to avoid these problems rather than make them worse.
Almost every recent problem you've faced is because you are trying to ignore the politics. Instead, embrace the political boundaries via ISO-3166. They are at the heart of time-keeping - just look at how often "government" occurs in the tzdb comments! I appeal for others to comment on the proposal, as it really is pretty darn simple and effective. #1 ensures that every region considered to be important enough to have an ISO-3166 code is given a full historic time-zone rule. #2 ensures that no political faux pas occurs by linking across boundaries. Stephen