So, since it's pretty clear that the "There should typically be at least one name for each ISO 3166-1 officially assigned two-letter code for an inhabited country or territory" guideline has been, if not abandoned entirely, at least significantly de-prioritized, perhaps theory.html needs an update indicating that, yes, this used to be considered more important, but is not any longer (perhaps going a bit into the rationale), and that we don't intend to create new zones anymore if that's the only justification.

--
Tim Parenti

On Tue, 19 Feb 2019 at 17:25, Michael H Deckers <michael.h.deckers@googlemail.com> wrote:

On 2019-02-19 21:22, Tim Parenti wrote:

> Frankly, it seems it was because when Asia/Hanoi was added to backzone (in
> 2014, not "five years later" as you write), the opportunity was taken then
> and there to change/redefine the rules to avoid scope creep. Which is all
> well and good from a project maintenance standpoint, though I can totally
> see why that can seem unfair from a human standpoint.

    So, before the inclusion of backzone/Asia/Hanoi on 2014-10-22,
    a little "scope creep" was still allowed on 2013-09-20 for
    America/Curacao (which agrees with America/Port_of_Spain
    since 1970) but not for America/Aruba (which also does)?

    I understand that tzdb is a non-commercial project -- but
    this is just one more reason to establish simple and stable
    guidelines that are easily understood, rather than to hunt
    for elusive goals.

    Michael Deckers.