Time zone mailing list wrote in <07fb0dba-622e-4d46-7f0f-7618a014621e@Shaw.ca>: |On 2023-02-22 15:48, Paul Eggert wrote: |> On 2/22/23 11:19, Brian Inglis via tz wrote: ... |>> https://www.austingroupbugs.net/view.php?id=1619 TZ=Area\ |>> /Location ... |I see problems with their terminology, why I am suggesting a taxonomy \ |for time |zone categories that we could develop, for them to use to communicate \ |in terms |common to us both. I think you are over-nitpicky here. |> Nothing in the proposed wording would prohibit other legacy names \ |> like TZ="CET" |> or TZ="Japan" as extensions, any more than the current POSIX wording \ |> does. | |They only allow Area/Location, and I have issues with that wording, \ The text reads If TZ is of the third format (that is, if the first character is not a <colon> and the value does not match the syntax for the second format), the value indicates either a geographical timezone or a special timezone from an implementation-defined timezone database. Typically these take the form Area/Location as in the IANA timezone database as well as Implementations are encouraged to incorporate the IANA timezone database into the timezone database used for TZ values specifying geographical and special timezones, and to provide a method to allow it to be updated in accordance with RFC 6557. Given other standards, i feel this is very forgiving. Note the word "typically". ... |They do not take account of the fact that a system may not use UTC, \ The UNIX epoch based on UTC is basically all it knows. Even furthermore, with the last issue parts were changed like so The DESCRIPTION is updated to refer to "seconds since the Epoch" rather than "seconds since 00:00:00 UTC (Coordinated Universal Time), January 1 1970" for consistency with other time functions. I would rather have liked to see a future where TAI is distributed in conjunction with a current leap second offset. (And i mean, you know, have another 8-bit for a 127 hours counter and a positive / negative indicator bit should be doable, if you want good time keeping.) Instead some empowered ones have voted to change civil time keeping aka UTC a decade into the future, and most likely after a negative leap is applied, causing havoc (here and there), for nothing but the purpose of software which does not deal with leap seconds (in the timespace outside of 1970 to ~2035, where leap seconds of course exist), loosing the only remaining affiliation that the western white man has to nature, the relation to the sun. Maybe i am also exaggerating (as the relation to the sun basically always ever meant you can piss without shadow in Greenwhich, at noon, maybe). In short -- i feel the complain on UTC is a bit excessive. |and POSIX |apps which do, may have to accomodate that, and that the zone identifier \ |may |have three levels below that. ... |That wording is also questionable - if they mean time zone identifiers or |abbreviations they should say so, not talk about geography which may \ |be unrelated. They follow due established identifiers as used by Olson then IANA, to which they explicitly refer, no? If i would feel the spur in my side then all the many threads about identifiers that were battered on this list could be quoted. My personal opinion leads towards UN/LOCODE, because trade and business is anyway all you are interested in, and they are well received and widely known under normal citizens like myself. And under 42000 options almost everybody will find one to accept in peace. |They also need to know that their model is inadequate and four transitions \ And also, all the western timekeeping will fail if states like China would really use their very own native sun-directed time, instead of some friendly western-fitted one. And IETF to cement internet times like zone = ("+" / "-") 4DIGIT ; Signed four-digit value of hhmm representing ; hours and minutes east of Greenwich (that is, ; the amount that the given time differs from ; Universal Time). Subtracting the timezone ; from the given time will give the UT form. ; The Universal Time zone is "+0000". And on IETF an old hand said we need more [named] zones [thus]. But that is surely off-topic for POSIX. --steffen | |Der Kragenbaer, The moon bear, |der holt sich munter he cheerfully and one by one |einen nach dem anderen runter wa.ks himself off |(By Robert Gernhardt)