Paul Eggert via tz <tz@iana.org> writes:
On 9/20/21 1:06 AM, Stephen Colebourne via tz wrote:
These have the effect of wiping out historic time-zone information on many locations where the data has been in tzdb for many years.
None of the information has been "wiped out". It has merely moved from one source file to another, and builds with PACKRATDATA=backzone still install all the info in question. This disagreement is not about "wiping out" info; it's about what category the info falls into.
The concern I'm having is that according to experiments I did back in June, the above is not true. As far as I can tell, adding PACKRATDATA=backzone does *not* reproduce what was formerly the default set of zones. I'm all for improving equity in tzdb's coverage, but I think it should be done by adding coverage for underserved areas, not removing data from areas that had been well-covered. And let's make no mistake: removing data from the default build is removing data, for many downstream users who won't have an opportunity to make their own decisions about what their platforms provide. regards, tom lane