On Wed, 9 Jun 2021 at 21:13, Paul Eggert <eggert@cs.ucla.edu> wrote:
Yes, I was definitely thinking of the comments. Also, the ordering of Zones (which is irrelevant). Stuff like that.
Neither comments nor ordering would be significant.
I've yet to see a willingness to engage on backwards compatibility - to stop fiddling with the data.
How about this: we could say that we won't do any sort of merging like this in the future. In other words, this is the last time we'll be merging legacy zones because they differ only before 1970. Would a statement like that help? We could put such a statement into the NEWS file, say.
It would be clearer to place an explicit statement in the charter or theory file. That the TZDB co-ordinator will not merge timezones or perform other actions that remove data from the database.
your patch (and probably previous ones) are making a political statement of the kind you say you don't want.
Sure, but no matter what we do we'll be making a political statement. The statement I'd like to see is "let's avoid political data when we can".
Country-based politics can be avoided by outsourcing the decision to ISO-3166. When they recognise a country, a zone ID must also exist. It is an incredibly simple rule, and easy for any drive-by commenters to understand. As Paul Ganssle says, the route you are trying to pursue really doesn't make any logical sense because it is more work than putting all the data in the main files and have the makefile perform a simple filter by date. Once the premise is accepted that the backzone data is a meaningful part of the project, there is literally no point in retaining it in backzone (rather than europe or africa). If you are willing to publish tarballs containing what is currently in backzone, does that mean that it is now accepted that the backzone is a valid and meaningful part of TZDB? That it can be enhanced if found to be wrong? Like Paul Ganssle, I really think the line you are trying to draw between the main files and backzone doesn't make any sense. Once the premise that the data currently in backzone matters, it should be restored to its rightful place in the main files, and tooling used to merge zones (which would be consistent as opposed to the piecemeal approach of the past few years. Stephen