On Mon, 2023-03-27 at 21:10 +0300, Ali Al Amine via tz wrote:
I do agree that it's not IANA's responsibility to push back against governments, but that doesn't deny the fact that a lot of governments are not well organized and such a decision can happen because two people discussed it in some meeting and that became the decision to go by (a proof of that is that this is not the first time a thing like this happens on this group as Howard said). If you have a way to fix every government on earth, then be my guest. Today it's Lebanon, tomorrow it'll be another unorganized country that would do the same thing, and the same frustrations for people that do not have a say on that government (maintainers of this repository and every vendor needing to propagate the change because 'asap').
I do understand that IANA is responsible to keep its databases updated at all times, but this specific database has a lot of very meaningful implications, and its own limitations with the vendor update times. Applying changes on a whim is definitely not the way to go because of the possible repercussions.
But it is IANA's responsibility to push back against governments, and IANA does. Unfortunately, governments do not generally respond well to pressure, particularly from those not being governed by them. That is why it is important for the people of Lebanon to pressure their government. Yes, some governments are not well-organized, but we should still try to persuade them to mend their ways. It is better to mount a futile effort than to give up. The maintainers who are impacted by time zone changes with little notice are not my concern--they accepted the burden when they volunteered. Similarly, the vendors accepted this as a cost of doing business. My concern is for the people of Lebanon who are harmed in the ways you described in your response to Deborah. John Sauter (John_Sauter@systemeyescomputerstore.com) -- get my PGP public key with gpg --locate-external-keys John_Sauter@systemeyescomputerstore.com