There are sources that indicate the islands in periods has been inhabited a several times in the past. In addition to this the islands has been assigned an ISO 3166-2 code and even a top-level domain. I see no reason why a zone should not be created. Just my two cents. -----Original Message----- From: tz-bounces@iana.org [mailto:tz-bounces@iana.org] On Behalf Of Paul Eggert Sent: 12 May 2012 02:14 To: Garrett Wollman Cc: Time zone mailing list Subject: Re: [tz] Missing entry for Heard Island and MacDonald Islands On 05/11/2012 03:36 PM, Garrett Wollman wrote:
The historical practice of the maintainers up to this point has been that locations that are uninhabited do not get a zone.
Yes, the idea is that the tz database attempts to record common real-world practice at a location. Local time is undefined if there are no locals. It's like trying to define the temperature of a true vacuum. A goal of the tz database design is to lessen the need for arguments. Omitting uninhabited locations is one small way to further that goal.