I'm forwarding this message from Bill Unruh, who is not on the time zone mailing list. Those of you who are on the list, please direct replies appropriately. --ado -----Original Message----- From: Bill Unruh [mailto:unruh@physics.ubc.ca] Sent: Sunday, February 22, 2009 3:18 To: tz@lecserver.nci.nih.gov Subject: Pacific-New Why in the world do you have that joke of a file pacificnew included in the tzdata database? It is a completely stupid joke, or political protest against yet another idiotic bill passed by the House, but never made it anywhere near law. People are actually using Pacific-New as a time zone in various distributions of Linux. tzdata is supposed to be a somewhat authoritative site for time zone info, and not a place for sophmoric jokes or political protest. It makes one think that the rest of your database may be similarly infused with idiocy. Are we going to find new files with protests against Islamic law, or Communist propeganda infiltrating the database next? -- William G. Unruh Canadian Institute for Tel: +1(604)822-3273 Physics&Astronomy Advanced Research Fax: +1(604)822-5324 UBC, Vancouver,BC Program in Cosmology unruh@physics.ubc.ca Canada V6T 1Z1 and Gravity http://axion.physics.ubc.ca/ For step by step instructions about setting up ppp under Linux, see http://axion.physics.ubc.ca/ppp-linux.html
The "pacificnew" file includes information about legislation that was introduced (but not passed) in the United States Congress; it serves to explain why a "Pacific-New" time zone was created in the first place. Note that the last line of the file is a "Link America/Los_Angeles US/Pacific-New" line, meaning that using either name now has the same effect. As to jokes and idiocy: there used to be an obscure bit of word play in an strftime.c comment; it was eliminated in version 7.40.-) --ado
On Sun, 22 Feb 2009, Olson, Arthur David (NIH/NCI) [E] wrote:
The "pacificnew" file includes information about legislation that was introduced (but not passed) in the United States Congress; it serves to explain why a "Pacific-New" time zone was created in the first place. Note that the last line of the file is a "Link America/Los_Angeles US/Pacific-New" line, meaning that using either name now has the same effect.
I guess I object strongly to including legislative proposals into the tzdata files. If we introduce a new file and a new timezone everytime some government official makes some silly comment about time, the whole edifice will collapse under the weight of that garbage. While the tzdata file is not an official publication it is regarded as pretty authoritiative by most people using computers in the world. It should therefore strive to be accurate and authoritative, and not get bogged down with irrelevancies, and political commentary or jokes (which is the only thing I can imagine that the Pacific-New timezone to be).
As to jokes and idiocy: there used to be an obscure bit of word play in an strftime.c comment; it was eliminated in version 7.40.-)
Never saw it. I am not above jokes and wordplay but not when it extends to introducing new time zones in at least semi-authoritative publications. Are we going to get an Okeefenokie time zone because someone likes Pogo-- or a US/BUSH timezone (constantly set to midnight) as political commentary on the last president? That an ill-considered proposal popped up in Congress 20 years ago but was never passed should not be memorialised by a new time zone in tzdata. My response was triggered when a Suse user said his distro assigned Pacific-New to him. Having never seen it before (Mandriva wisely does not have it), I looked at the tzdata file and found it. Please please remove it.
--ado
-- William G. Unruh | Canadian Institute for| Tel: +1(604)822-3273 Physics&Astronomy | Advanced Research | Fax: +1(604)822-5324 UBC, Vancouver,BC | Program in Cosmology | unruh@physics.ubc.ca Canada V6T 1Z1 | and Gravity | www.theory.physics.ubc.ca/
participants (2)
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Bill Unruh -
Olson, Arthur David (NIH/NCI) [E]