On Wed, 28 Aug 2013, Zefram wrote:
There should be some project that tackles pre-1970 timezones systematically. My preference would be for the tz project itself to do this. It could be done gradually, by first permitting new zones (for which there's decent data) to be added that differ from existing ones only pre-1970, and eventually by progressively reducing that 1970 threshold to increase the project's formal scope.
I agree. It seems clear that some people care about pre-1970 timestamps. If they care enough to contribute data, than I think that the tz project should not turn them away. Increasing the quality of pre-1970 data may require creating new zones, and I think it would be fine if such new zones were handled in a way that allows distributors to choose whether or not to include them. For example, there could be different versions of zone.tab that do or do not include cities that differ only in pre-1970 timestamps, and there could be Makefile options to control whether or not such additional zones are installed. --apb (Alan Barrett)