On Aug 18, 2020, at 8:43 PM, Tom Lane <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us> wrote:
While there's nothing particularly wrong with providing a zip-format archive if Paul and Tim feel like doing so, I find myself skeptical that there's actually a need for that. The primary tzdata distribution is *not* oriented towards the sort of end user who might find the lack of a zipball to be an impediment. Rather, that dataset is meant to be consumed by OS-level packagers who will then push it out in system updates for their respective platforms. (Hello, Microsoft?)
Unfortunately, Juergen may be working on the platform developed by the company you're addressing in that comment. I also infer from "I have to implement something in JavaScript that uses timezones.", in his original message, that he's not an "end user" in the sense of somebody just wanting to update their system's time zone files (which, as per the way you addressed the developer of the system, don't exist anyway :-)). However, what he said later was
First of all, a tar.gz is Linux specific. True, you could install additional Windows software. But, that might not go well with customers of mine. I think a ZIP would be acceptable for both worlds.
If he's providing software to a customer base, he might want to consider bundling the tzdb with the JavaScript software; even if the customer has a zipball, it'd be a pain for them to download and install.