With regard to:
CLDR is trying to maintain timezone strings that are suitable for Java (as almost nobody else uses them) We don't know who all uses the timezone names from CLDR...
I'd just like to point out the obvious - LOTS of other things use the CLDR time zone names data. Some go through ICU and some use CLDR directly. A few examples: - The DateTimeFormatter class built in to Windows UWP - The JavaScript Intl.DateTimeFormat object, and the Date.toString, Date.toLocaleString and Date.toLocaleTimeString functions built in to most modern web browsers. - The IntlTimeZone::getDisplayName function in PHP - The get_timezone_name function in Python's Babel library - My TimeZoneNames library for .NET There are lots more, I'm sure. I don't think it's appropriate to demote the issue to a Java-specific problem.