02.06.2016 22:37, Paul Eggert wrote:
Another reason for not using these abbreviations, which I haven't perhaps made clear, is to avoid arbitrating disputes over what the time zone abbreviations should be. A user could reasonably complain "Why are you making up an abbreviation that calls it Krasnoyarsk Time? This is Tomsk, not Krasnoyarsk!" The current kerfuffle is just the tip of the iceberg, and the problem will get worse as the number of tzdata names increases.
There is the same cities (Novosibirsk / Krasnoyarsk) in timezones on Android and Windows OS (and there are a lot of users of these OS), so you can treat these as common-used names for timezones. I suppose what this argument, together with the previously listed arguments, is enough to set abbreviations in 'Asia/Tomsk' to NOVT/KRAT like already done in 'Asia/Novokuznetsk'. Also please note what 'Asia/Novokuznetsk' uses not only similar schema of 'to take abbreviations from nearby timezone' but the same timezones.
These abbreviations are entirely invented and are not needed to solve time zone issues. All too often disagreements about them degenerate into political disputes that distract from tzdata's main goal, and we need to get out of the business of making them up or trying to defend them.
So remove the feature entirely. But, you already answered what you do not have such plans:
EST and HST have been commonly used by reliable English-language sources for decades. We did not invent these abbreviations, and don't plan to remove them.
I do not see anything good in the current state when some timezones have abbreviations and some have not. All timezones should have the same approach. -- Regards, Pavel.