<<On Tue, 11 Jan 2000 09:16:04 -0500, "Olson, Arthur David (NCI)" <olsona@dc37a.nci.nih.gov> said:
A few years back we separated the time zone distribution into two parts, "tzcode" and "tzdata", with the thought that tzcode might be relatively stable. At the end of 1999, though, we're at tzcode1999i.tar.gz and tzdata1999j.tar.gz; so much for relative stability.
Speaking with my operating-system vendor hat on, I think it's somewhat easier to deal with separate distributions. In particular, it's much easier to express the notion of ``the timezone database is version 1999f but the code is version 1998a'', which (for varying values of 1999f and 1998a) better reflects the true state of affairs in several operating systems. While the official tzcode distribution may have been updated often, operating system vendors are generally reluctant to update a core system library (libc) so frequently. This is particularly the case when a substantial merging and testing effort would be required to perform the update. -GAWollman