On 12 April 2013 10:57, Tobias Conradi <mail.2012@tobiasconradi.com> wrote:

On Fri, Apr 12, 2013 at 4:40 PM, Tim Parenti <tim@timtimeonline.com> wrote:
>
> On 12 April 2013 04:45, Tobias Conradi <mail.2012@tobiasconradi.com> wrote:
>>
>> D for %s never means anything else than 1:00 saving.
>
>
> Within the current tz database, sure, that is presently the case. But this
> is not necessarily the case within ACTUAL practice;

Sure, actual practice in the IANA time zone database.

> "D" could conceivably be
> used to refer to a DST offset of any amount, since it is still "daylight
> saving time", just of a different amount.

Against actual practice in the IANA time zone database, deteriorating
usability for those that rely use systematization.

It would appear you misunderstood or misinterpreted my statements. The ONLY "actual practice" which is relevant is the actual practice on the ground, independent of tz. If I understood your statement correctly, this is the opposite of what you said.

> To be clear, I haven't seen any evidence either way, but I
> don't particularly believe any residents of Lord Howe Island would call it
> "Lord Howe half-daylight time", because to them, half an hour is a full
> transition.

Does that matter?

As above, yes. What the locals call it should be the ONLY practice that matters. While I am sympathetic to your desires for broader systematization, it is not the aim of this project.

> I am not making the argument here that the terminology is used this way in
> Australia/Lord_Howe; only that if it is, then LHDT is a perfectly suitable
> (and indeed, preferred) abbreviation for UTC+10:30+0:30 as observed there in
> the summer.
Why? For other regions the database does not care at all about local
usage and will certainly fail in bilingual environments.

> On 12 April 2013 04:22, Tobias Conradi <tobias.conradi@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> > We are not inventing anything new
>> It has been proven you do in the scope of the DB.
>
>
> I have not been part of this project for very long, but I believe most of
> the "invented" abbreviations have been simply to fulfill POSIX requirements
> where no commonly-used English terminology previously existed.

POSIX requirements for abbreviations can be fulfilled without English
terminology. E.g. WIT could mean Waktu Indonesia Timur (Eastern
Indonesian Time) instead of IANA used English Western Indonesia Time.

The English speaking countries largely get their way through with
locally used abbreviations, whilst needs and wishes of others are
ignored.

Again, I haven't been around for long, but according to my understanding of this project's history, it is solely an English-language project. Localization issues are outside of its scope.

Tim Parenti