On 23 September 2013 02:27, David Patte ₯ <dpatte@relativedata.com> wrote:
Recent arguments on this list mostly sound like arguments in semantics.
But I believe the primary concern many of us have is that the data provided by the database has been changed unnecessarily, forcing rework and re-interpretation for those that use the database was other than assumed by the maintainers. In many cases this will mean using data from other sources, when the data could easily have been mantained in a single location.
+1
From my perspective as a consumer of the data, the tzdb now provides worse data than it did before.The rationale for making the changes at all is very weak. The changes made pretty arbitrary. (eg, fixes are aplied to Switzerland in the 1940s, yet McMurdo now contains nonsense for the 1940s). The follow up emails jump through huge hoops and weasel words to try and justify these changes because they are not enhancements, just change for changes sake.
The tzdb should be a simple project in data terms - future changes and enhancements to the past only. These ridiculous cleanups are a huge net negative. Stephen