Just on this point:

On 05.11.21 17:42, Brian Park wrote:

Better to stick with what we have: observe what people on the ground think the time is.

I've seen this a few times, but I don't understand it. No normal person on the ground thinks their time is "America/Los_Angeles". It's "US/Pacific". No normal person in Toronto thinks their time is "America/Toronto". Their country is not even America. They think their timezone is "Canada/Eastern". People are forced to use "America/Los_Angeles" or "America/Toronto" because the TZDB forced that nomenclature upon our users. It seems a mapping layer, like the 'countryzone' file containing ISO-countries, would be the one that provides the timezones that people use on the ground.

Second verse, same as the first: these are database keys, not user interface presentation.  Nobody is forced to present any database key to a user.  If you have locale awareness, as most modern user-facing systems have, you're going to be far more granular anyway.

Couldn't agree more with Eliot.

-- 
Kenneth Murchison
Senior Software Developer
Fastmail US LLC