I don't know why there's no binary distribution, but it's certainly useful to have an architecture independent binary standard, since it makes it much easier to write cross platform software that interprets the binaries.

Having a "source" distribution is presumably useful for situations where you want to build only a subset of the dataset (e.g. in restricted memory situations), or if you have your own modifications that you patch in for whatever reason.

On April 8, 2016 11:30:02 AM EDT, Random832 <random832@fastmail.com> wrote:
On Fri, Apr 8, 2016, at 11:16, Paul_Koning@Dell.com wrote:
 It's there if you want to use it.  The tzdata are useful to everyone,
 whether they use zic or not, whether they use the supplied zic or some
 other.

I don't understand how that answers my question, of why there are no
binary packages, provided by this project, of the binary timezones. I
don't see what other purpose could be served by having the binary format
be architecture-independent.