There is some uncertainty about the Egypt change

Agreed, as I previously mentioned. However, please be informed that here at Microsoft we have decided to go ahead with this change - despite the uncertainty. This was a difficult decision, which was made after much deliberation with our representatives in Egypt. This will be included in the June time zone update for Microsoft Windows, on June 14th. IMHO, it would be good if there were a similar 2016e release of TZDB around the same time. Though I think we could all feel more comfortable if the government would publish a formal decree. There is still no mention of it at http://www.cc.gov.eg/Legislations/Egypt_Legislations.aspx Matt Johnson Microsoft Corp.

sherif.atef@hsbc.com wrote:

it is possible that there will not be any further confirmations and that the government of Egypt can apply it still.

Yes, the underlying problem is that it is hard to predict what the Egyptian government will do. Maybe clocks will move forward on July 7, maybe it'll be some other date, and it's possible the clocks won't change after all. It's not good to wait until the last minute before releasing a tzdata update. On the other hand it's not good to cry wolf about a change that might not happen or that might happen differently. In a situation like this, reasonable people can differ about what to do. That being said, given that we have seven weeks before the hypothetical deadline, there is no particular rush in releasing right away. We can wait for a few weeks longer, as Matt Johnson suggested. Do you have some contacts with the Egyptian government, to ask them what the situation is? Or can you make some contacts? Surely it should be of some concern to the government that software developers who are trying to help make computer-based clocks work correctly in Egypt are not sure about what to do. The longer they wait to make it official, the more clocks will be wrong on the big day (assuming the big day happens).

If there is a test database (Unable to access the link by the way)

Hmm, I just now checked this URL: https://github.com/eggert/tz and it worked for me. You should be able to clone the entire experimental repository by running the following shell command: git clone https://github.com/eggert/tz.git If this doesn't work, it might help to report the symptoms you observe.

I think it may be better if the database is released officially , fixes are prepared and then it is left to people in Egypt to either apply it if the decision is applied by the government or to drop it if not.

You should be able to apply the proposed Egypt patch now, by using the experimental repository. If you can't access the repository, you can apply the attached patches to 2016d, the most recent release; this should be result in a database that is identical to what is currently in the experimental repository.