Stephen Colebourne wrote:
The Theory change reinstates the one zone per ISO-3166 region requirement.
I'm afraid that's incorrect. That change would strengthen the requirement beyond what it ever was, by requiring a Zone to be present for every country. That has never been required and has never been the practice in the tz database. There is no timekeeping reason to undo the changes already agreed upon in this area and incorporated in the 2013d stable release, nor is there any timekeeping reason to add the proposed requirement. It's purely a political requirement. The other changes in that proposed patch seem to be an attempt to implement the Theory change. While not affecting timestamps (they are internal administration), they use a style that emphasizes the roles of countries more. This would increase the future political pressures on tz database maintenance, and I don't see how that would be a step forward. We should be deemphasizing political issues, not emphasizing them more.