Guy Harris wrote:
The first suggestion is what I think Zefram was suggesting; the second suggestion sounds like what you're suggesting.
Yes, that sounds about right.
Is that intended to reduce the number of zones to present to someone configuring the system if your system doesn't make a vigorous effort to support those times, and to reduce the effort needed to maintain them?
Yes to both. The extra zones are a burden to users and to maintainers, and for most users their cost exceeds their benefit.
Is it intended to be consistent with a rule forbidding adding *new* tzids due to differences in pre-1970 standardized time?
Yes. That rule's from "Theory".
Is it intended to reduce political disputes over tzids - presumably by reducing the number of tzids and thus the number of possible points of complaint,
Yes, that's part of it. But more important, it reduces the number of zones put in only because a location is politically "special" in some way.
I went back through the archive and, if the controversial changes are the ones from the "Move links to 'backward' if they exist only because of country codes." message, I'm probably missing something, as that doesn't appear to be discarding existing pre-1970 splits, at least from the description.)
You're correct, those changes don't discard existing pre-1970 splits.