Since 2013 I've been patching tzdb by replacing Zones with Links when Links suffice according to the guidelines. These patches have not affected timestamps after 1970. I've been doing this gradually. The changes have worked without significant incident, partly because end users generally don't care about pre-1970 timestamps, and partly because the few users who do care (astrologers, mostly) know or should know that the pre-1970 Zone data entries are often wrong and even when right are typically grossly inadequate for realistic use outside the named location - this is partly why any focus on pre-1970 is out of scope for tzdb. Preparing all these patches has been a big enough job that I've been doing it gradually since I have limited time. This process was discussed on the list before it began, and although there was some objection, a consensus to move towards these goals was reached at the time. Most of this job was done before 2021a came out. The main difference in this round of patches, is that I had aimed to complete the job, in response to a user query raising equity concerns in 2021a. It is clear that the 2021a setup was not sustainable in the long term, if equity is a goal. Completing the job generated larger patches than usual, and the patches' size triggered concern that they held too many changes all at once. Also, the patches' effects on pre-1970 timestamps in (for example) Norway and Sweden have triggered concerns, much more so than similar changes made (for example) to Angola and Congo in tzdb 2014g. My own view is that we've done this before, many times, it hasn't been a problem in practice, and it's way past time to address the equity concerns as they have a good chance to really bite this project and its repackagers in the future. It's a bad look for us that so much concern about Norway and Sweden has appeared on this mailing list, even though hardly anybody seems to have cared about Angola and Congo. It'll be an even worse look if we ignore this issue weeks, months or even years after it's been made clear to us. I wrote, tested and published several concrete suggestions addressing the fairness problem. In the months since May when the fairness problem was discovered and objections to my proposed fixes were raised, no other concrete fix addressing both of these concerns has been implemented or tested, and all other suggestions made so far would have required significant work, if they would have worked at all, or would have caused more data churn than what I proposed. I realize that there are valid concerns about installing too many of these patches at once, so 2021b affects only nine Zones instead of the thirty-odd Zones in my May proposal. The idea is to do further patch sets in not-too-distant-future releases, so that the job can finally be finished. I also recognize that there are other forms of equity and fairness that should be considered, perhaps along with alternative technical solutions to the problems these patches address. With all this in mind, issuing 2021b now is a significant step toward equity in tzdb. It will let us say that we are moving toward a fair process, and will give us the opportunity and motivation to improve on that process and to address and balance the various other concerns that have recently appeared on the mailing list.