Oct. 26, 2012
10:19 p.m.
What is stopping the TZ project from using the unambiguous abbreviations so that the people who use the TZ database in Australia or on Australian services don't run into these basic problems anymore?
One minor consideration: unambiguous time zone abbreviations can have the appearance of US-centricism if we use AEST for Australia but continue with EST (rather than UEST or USEST or something else) for the United States. ("Why does the United States get the short abbreviations?") The appearance is avoided if there's a clear mandate for use of, say, AEST. --ado