On Nov 19, 2019, at 1:03 PM, Bryan J Smith <b.j.smith@ieee.org> wrote:
1) What are the thresholds to change the official Zoneinfo Path, not just an alias or other name, but the Path, of a Zone?
theory.html doesn't appear to address this. On 2008-03-18, some name changes were made: Calcutta -> Kolkata Saigon -> Ho_Chi_Minh Both reflect changes made well before 2008; for example, the respelling of Kolkata occurred in 2001: https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2016/09/02/492447039/tk The first of those changes is the one closest to Kiev vs. Kyiv - the latter isn't just a respelling, it's a renaming, and apparently also corresponded to the incorporation of some other districts outside what was Saigon into the city.
2) How to handle any alias to the old name(s), when the official Path is to be changed (per #1)?
Presumably, the same way that those other changes were made; a Link line is added to the "backward" file, so the old name remains for backwards compatibility, as a link to the new name (at least if you're using a file system that supports links).
3) What historical precedents are there on this matter (I've been trying to look through the change logs), to further validate justification (of #1)?
Perhaps Calcutta -> Kolkata, although that one may not have been as politically sensitive as this one.