These timezones should be added to the Australian Government website but they should not be forgotten as to the abbreviations used. The Lord Howe Island and Eucla timezones are referred to with the abbreviations as I indicated below in the TZ database. Even the Christmas Island and Cocos Keeling Islands timezones are also included in the Australasia file within TZ. These abbreviations should be included in this discussion but another topic addressing the Australian Government website should be raised to ensure all timezones are mentioned. Kind Regards, David Grosz Sydney, Australia There are only 10 types of people in the world. Those who understand binary and those who don't. -----Original Message----- From: Shaun Bouckaert [mailto:shaun.bouckaert@gmail.com] Sent: Thursday, 11 October 2012 7:47 PM To: tz@iana.org Cc: david@dlg.com.au Subject: Re: [tz] Australian Timezone Abreviations - Next step This issue has been specifically about the abbreviations for the primary timezones of Australia, those listed on the federal governments website. Is the issue with the timezones you've mentioned the abreviations, or that they aren't distinct timezones in the data? If they aren't, but should be, especially in regards to the relevent legislation, perhaps a seperate topic about that should be raised. Shaun On 11 October 2012 17:04, David Grosz <david@dlg.com.au> wrote:

I've noticed that the timezones for the Eucla region (UTC+08:45/CWST) and Lord Howe Island (UTC+10:30 with 30mins advance for DST/LHST-LHDT) always seem to be neglected in discussion. The fact that there are official timezones for these areas should mean they are added to the Australian Government website.

In addition, should territories such as Christmas Island and Cocos Keeling Islands which are under some sort of Australian control also be added to the list of discussed Australian timezones?

Kind Regards, David Grosz Sydney, Australia

There are only 10 types of people in the world. Those who understand binary and those who don't.

-----Original Message----- From: tz-bounces@iana.org [mailto:tz-bounces@iana.org] On Behalf Of Shaun Bouckaert Sent: Thursday, 11 October 2012 4:40 PM To: tz@iana.org Subject: [tz] Australian Timezone Abreviations - Next step

After taking some time off from this issue, I've considered the next logical step to be contacting the relevant government departments in charge of the timezone legislation in each state. As a Queenslander I will start with the Queensland Attorney-General, as the timezone legislation falls under his responsibility.

I honestly believe that the only argument for the status quo on this issue is that it's been this way for a long time. I have previously presented many good arguments as to why it needs to be updated to reflect what is widely used amongst government and private organisations across the country, and what is presented by the federal government on this page http://australia.gov.au/about-australia/our-country/time

Hopefully, with responses from the relevant state departments, this issue can be resolved and put to bed.

Shaun

The funny thing about these abbreviations is that the regional timezones not included in the Australian Government Website but used in TZ and also on other websites such as www.timeanddate.com is consistent using four character codes as with the Australian Government website for major Australian timezones. As such, I believe the zimezones in TZ should be updated to be inline with the Australian Government website's use of the abbreviations. The current abbreviations used for major Australian timezones by TZ are the same abbreviations as timezones used in USA. Shouldn't each timezone use a unique abbreviation? Kind Regards, David Grosz Sydney, Australia There are only 10 types of people in the world. Those who understand binary and those who don't. -----Original Message----- From: Shaun Bouckaert [mailto:shaun.bouckaert@gmail.com] Sent: Thursday, 11 October 2012 8:27 PM To: tz@iana.org Cc: david@dlg.com.au Subject: Re: [tz] Australian Timezone Abreviations - Next step The issue with regards to the Australian government's website should be brought up with whomever/whichever department manages that page. This mailing list is really just for the management of the tzdata database. I agree that it should probably include all Australian timezones though. It'd be interesting if those timezones are given the correct abbreviations in the database but the primary mainland timezones are still incorrect. Shaun On 11 October 2012 19:07, David Grosz <david@dlg.com.au> wrote:

These timezones should be added to the Australian Government website but they should not be forgotten as to the abbreviations used. The Lord Howe Island and Eucla timezones are referred to with the abbreviations as I indicated below in the TZ database. Even the Christmas Island and Cocos Keeling Islands timezones are also included in the Australasia file within TZ. These abbreviations should be included in this discussion but another topic addressing the Australian Government website should be raised to ensure all timezones are mentioned.

Kind Regards, David Grosz Sydney, Australia

There are only 10 types of people in the world. Those who understand binary and those who don't.

-----Original Message----- From: Shaun Bouckaert [mailto:shaun.bouckaert@gmail.com] Sent: Thursday, 11 October 2012 7:47 PM To: tz@iana.org Cc: david@dlg.com.au Subject: Re: [tz] Australian Timezone Abreviations - Next step

This issue has been specifically about the abbreviations for the primary timezones of Australia, those listed on the federal governments website. Is the issue with the timezones you've mentioned the abreviations, or that they aren't distinct timezones in the data? If they aren't, but should be, especially in regards to the relevent legislation, perhaps a seperate topic about that should be raised.

Shaun

On 11 October 2012 17:04, David Grosz <david@dlg.com.au> wrote:

...

I've noticed that the timezones for the Eucla region (UTC+08:45/CWST) and Lord Howe Island (UTC+10:30 with 30mins advance for DST/LHST-LHDT) always seem to be neglected in discussion. The fact that there are official timezones for these areas should mean they are added to the Australian Government website.

In addition, should territories such as Christmas Island and Cocos Keeling Islands which are under some sort of Australian control also be added to the list of discussed Australian timezones?

Kind Regards, David Grosz Sydney, Australia

There are only 10 types of people in the world. Those who understand binary and those who don't.

-----Original Message----- From: tz-bounces@iana.org [mailto:tz-bounces@iana.org] On Behalf Of Shaun Bouckaert Sent: Thursday, 11 October 2012 4:40 PM To: tz@iana.org Subject: [tz] Australian Timezone Abreviations - Next step

After taking some time off from this issue, I've considered the next logical step to be contacting the relevant government departments in charge of the timezone legislation in each state. As a Queenslander I will start with the Queensland Attorney-General, as the timezone legislation falls under his responsibility.

I honestly believe that the only argument for the status quo on this issue is that it's been this way for a long time. I have previously presented many good arguments as to why it needs to be updated to reflect what is widely used amongst government and private organisations across the country, and what is presented by the federal government on this page http://australia.gov.au/about-australia/our-country/time

Hopefully, with responses from the relevant state departments, this issue can be resolved and put to bed.

Shaun

Date: Fri, 19 Oct 2012 11:45:08 +1000 From: Shaun Bouckaert <shaun.bouckaert@gmail.com> Message-ID: <CALBLQPY6v-Xq+VrTgkbwt2DFfydoNHAjRbPMZXi1wsNwnsi1dw@mail.gmail.com> | Did you ever think that existing uses of the three letter acronyms are | because that's the way they are currently in the database? Some of them may be but consider ... http://www.outback-australia-travel-secrets.com/australia-time-zones.html (for example) ... Sydney Australia Time Zone: UTC/GMT +10 hours (Eastern Standard Time EST) While that "EST" might perhaps come from our data, someone clearly wrote it as "Eastern Standard Time" by hand - that string isn't in the (compiled) data anywhere. | This also isn't just one site. This is the page that | has been specifically set up to state what the timezones of Australia | are. Yes, just like the one I quoted above, both are aimed at non-Australians (tourists, others wanting to know what time it is in Aust, etc). And both are equally authoritative (zero) - the Commonwealth govt has no authority over time (or what it is called) anywhere in Aust other than ACT, and Northern Territory. What's more, the page that quotes "AEST" and "AEDT" as the zones that apply in Victoria, also gives a link to "more information on daylight saving in Victoria", if you follow that, you find that (among other things) it says ... "Victoria's period of daylight saving will start at 2:00am on Sunday 7 October 2012. At 2:00am standard time (Eastern Standard Time) move clocks forward one hour to 3:00am summer time." Note "Eastern Standard Time" (not Australian Eastern Standard Time) and "to 3:00am summer time" (not to 3amm daylight saving time, and no "Australian" in that either). And this is a Vic Govt website, which is the govt that is responsible for defining the time in Victoria. Ref: http://www.vic.gov.au/daylight-saving-in-victoria.html You should also look at http://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/Parliamentary_Departments/Parliamenta... (sorry about the long line) which is Research Paper no. 10 2009-10 Greg Baker Statistics and Mapping Section 19 November 2009 (I think this is "...Section of the Parliamentary Library" but I am not sure of thyat). It says, in part, ... Australia has three time zones. These are called Eastern Standard Time (EST), Central Standard Time (CST), and Western Standard Time (WST) which is sometimes called Western Australian Time. These zones are sometimes referred to as AEST, ACST and AWST respectively where the prefix refers to Australia. These time zones were set up by colonial legislatures in the mid to late 1890s.[6] EST is 10 hours ahead of UTC. In winter it applies to New South Wales, except in Broken Hill[7] which is on CST; Victoria; Queensland; Tasmania; and the Australian Capital Territory. Lord Howe Island is administratively part of New South Wales, but has standard time 10 hours 30 minutes ahead of UTC.[8] CST is 9 hours 30 minutes ahead of UTC. CST applies throughout South Australia, the Northern Territory and Broken Hill in New South Wales.[9] WST is 8 hours ahead of UTC and applies throughout Western Australia. Note the "sometimes referred to" where it refers to AEST (etc), and that it both gives, and internally uses, just "EST" (etc) as the proper abbreviation. There's a lot of useful information in that report (lots of historical info) and it looks to be well researched, it is not (and does not claim to be) authoritative for anything however (and I'm not saying it should be used that way.) | > Yes, official statements from national and state government departments | > would be useful. | Although I'm certainly making an attempt at this, For Qld, I think you'll be able to find (at least extracts from) the Standard Time Act, 1894, on line (just do a web search). From what I can tell, it still applies, essentially unammended. Note no typo, that's 1894 - pre federation, there was no "Australia" then, so it would be astounding if the official name for the timezone were "Australian" anything. In fact, from what I can determine, there is no real name in Qld, just "standard time", which is not surprising for the period. This is why I requested that you get some pointer to authority for whatever opinion you get, so we don't end up just taking some random minor bureaucrat's opinion as being blessed by some Govt authority. | If there are people in other states For NSW & ACT the statutes are also available, neither refer to "Australian" in the names (aside from the "A" in ACT), though from what I can see, neither refer to "Eastern" either, "New South Wales Standard Time" and "ACT Standard Time" appear to be what they use. Vic & Tas used to have legislation online, but it seems to be no longer available (unless you want to pay for it, the Summer Time Act 1972, Vic, is available for $3.90 if you want to acquire it). It used to say "Eastern Standard Time" and "Eastern Summer Time" and I doubt it has been changed (but feel free to acquire a copy, or go visit a law library and examine it there). I haven't looked for SA or WA (for the brief period Summer Time applied in WA). kre

On Oct 19, 2012, at 10:50 PM, Mark Tearle <mtearle@tearle.com> wrote:

Unfortunately, neither act (or subsiduary regulations) point to an accepted abbreviation, and just use the terms "standard time" and "summer time".

Just out of curiosity, does *any* country designate Official Time Zone Abbreviations(TM) in law? Not names, but *abbreviations*? Some quick poking around found http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/USCODE-2010-title15/pdf/USCODE-2010-title15-cha... (section 263) specifying time zone names here in the septic tank :-), but it gives names, *not* abbreviations.

On 20/10/12 17:34 , Guy Harris wrote:

On Oct 19, 2012, at 10:50 PM, Mark Tearle <mtearle@tearle.com> wrote:

...

Unfortunately, neither act (or subsiduary regulations) point to an accepted abbreviation, and just use the terms "standard time" and "summer time". Just out of curiosity, does *any* country designate Official Time Zone Abbreviations(TM) in law? Not names, but *abbreviations*?

Some quick poking around found

http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/USCODE-2010-title15/pdf/USCODE-2010-title15-cha...

(section 263) specifying time zone names here in the septic tank :-), but it gives names, *not* abbreviations.

Next thing you are going to tell me is that the tz project is coming up with random abbreviations when convenient, like FET! The NSW Act doesn't specify EST or EDT: http://www.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/download.cgi/cgi-bin/download.cgi/download... At http://www.lawlink.nsw.gov.au/Lawlink/cru/ll_cru.nsf/pages/cru_daylightsavin... it says " NSW legislation does not specify abbreviations for standard or summer time. EST denotes Eastern Standard Time. Summertime or daylight saving time is commonly expressed as EDST (eastern daylight saving time)" Going through the various Standard Time Acts, there are also no abbreviations in it. So.... Consider that there are current issues with the way that the Australian timezones are handled in the TZ data because of its ambiguousness (if such a word exist) with other timezones in the world. And consider that there are no official abbreviations. And consider that there is a lot of places on the Internet already where the unambiguous abbreviations are used. What is stopping the TZ project from using the unambiguous abbreviations so that the people who use the TZ database in Australia or on Australian services don't run into these basic problems anymore? Edwin

On 10/20/2012 04:57 AM, Edwin Groothuis wrote:

What is stopping the TZ project from using the unambiguous abbreviations

As I understand it, it's a combination of several things. Australians themselves do not agree on what abbreviations to use. When in doubt, it's better to leave things alone. Finally, ambiguity is not a problem that we're trying to solve; although it's nicer to be unambiguous, we have ambiguity elsewhere and the ambiguity here doesn't make the problem that much worse. All that being said, I just now redid the searches that I did back in 2001, with similar flaws as before, and found the following changes since then: * The phrase "Daylight Time" is now more popular than "Summer Time" when referring to time zone names on the public web in Australia. (In 2001, the reverse was true.) * Eastern time is more commonly referred to with abbreviations beginning with "A". (In 2001, the preference was to omit the "A".) * Central and western time are the reverse: their abbreviations typically omit the "A" (just as they did in 2001). The margin of difference for all the above is often striking, but is sometimes relatively small. If we were not constrained by our existing practice and were to pick the abbreviations most commonly used today, this survey (flawed as it is) suggests that they would be: AEST AEDT CST CDT WST WDT There is no rush to switch the tz database, and it would be odd to use what seem to be the currently-most-popular abbreviations, as they're inconsistent with each other. One possibility is to wait a few years and see whether the rest of Australia adopts the eastern practice of leading "A". Here are details about the searches that I used. Altavista search count results: 1,480 "Eastern Summer Time" AND domain:au 148 "Australian Eastern Summer Time" AND domain:au 9,840 "Eastern Daylight Time" AND domain:au 3,620 "Australian Eastern Daylight Time" AND domain:au 20 "Central Summer Time" AND domain:au 7 "Australian Central Summer Time" AND domain:au 5,420 "Central Daylight Time" AND domain:au 49 "Australian Central Daylight Time" AND domain:au 4 "Western Summer Time" AND domain:au 0 "Australian Western Summer Time" AND domain:au 21 "Western Daylight Time" AND domain:au 9 "Australian Western Daylight Time" AND domain:au 711,000 "EST" and domain:au 132,000 "EDT" and domain:au 2,390,000 "AEST" and domain:au 247,000 "AEDT" and domain:au 127,000 "CST" and domain:au 18,700 "CDT" and domain:au 13,600 "ACST" and domain:au 6,770 "ACDT" and domain:au 73,300 "WST" and domain:au 29,900 "WDT" and domain:au 16,700 "AWST" and domain:au 2,570 "AWDT" and domain:au Google search count results: 17,500 "Eastern Summer Time" site:.au 5,990 "Australian Eastern Summer Time" site:.au 22,500 "Eastern Daylight Time" site:.au 41,700 "Australian Eastern Daylight Time" site:.au [The previous two numbers are contradictory, but that's what Google reported!] 7,210 "Central Summer Time" site:.au 96 "Australian Central Summer Time" site:.au 33,700 "Central Daylight Time" site:.au 596 "Australian Central Daylight Time" site:.au 83 "Western Summer Time" site:.au 5 "Australian Western Summer Time" site:.au 2,150 "Western Daylight Time" site:.au 380 "Australian Western Daylight Time" site:.au 19,200,000 "EST" site:.au 1,840,000 "EDT" site:.au 22,700,000 "AEST" site:.au 4,430,000 "AEDT" site:.au 699,000 "CST" site:.au 173,000 "CDT" site:.au 249,000 "ACST" site:.au 163,000 "ACDT" site:.au 852,000 "WST" site:.au 27,300 "WDT" site:.au 277,000 "AWST" site:.au 11,900 "AWDT" site:.au All searches done from the Los Angeles area, on 2012-10-20 at about 16:00 UTC, with Javascript enabled and cookies disabled.

gah, I keep messing up this reply vs reply to list thing. On 10/20/2012 1:30 PM, Paul Eggert wrote:

The margin of difference for all the above is often striking, but is sometimes relatively small.

If we were not constrained by our existing practice and were to pick the abbreviations most commonly used today, this survey (flawed as it is) suggests that they would be:

AEST AEDT CST CDT WST WDT

Are there any sites that specifically endorse the practice of using *ST to refer to "Summer Time" [not the same thing as the presumably common practice of, as in America, using *ST to refer to the whole timezone regardless of daylight saving status] If not, it might make sense to at least do _that_ to eliminate one half of the ambiguity, by going with EST/EDT, where the same time with the same abbreviation in the same timezone setting appears twice an hour apart. Hang on, does tzcode even do anything meaningful with the timezone abbreviation? Actually, it looks like tzcode doesn't have a strptime or getdate implementation at all. Maybe that's something that should be added.

On 21/10/12 04:30 , Paul Eggert wrote: I took the liberty of doing these tests too:

19,200,000 "EST" site:.au 22,700,000 "AEST" site:.au

So I checked the pages returned for EST. It wasn't until page 42 that the first reference of EST with regarding to the timezone was there. And the second one at page 53. While going through this list, I've learned a lot of different meaning for word "EST", in all its possible variations in spell capitalization. And the last page, 71 in my case, has 5 of the 10 links related to non-timezone related usage of the string EST. On the other hand, because of the uniqueness of the string "AEST" (i.e. the four letters aren't used anywhere except where to indicate the timezone), you have 22,700,00 real hits, while you have 19,200,000 hits on a word which usage highly varies. Edwin

On 10/21/2012 02:39 PM, enh wrote:

at the risk of pouring more gas on a fire i don't even care about... fwiw, here's what Android has for the Australia/ zones, courtesy of CLDR via icu4c: I believe CLDR actually localizes the australian timezones to have the A internationally and not in en-AU. Of course, there is a legitimate argument that tzdata should have international abbreviations and leave localized ones to CLDR.

Actually... it's not clear to me why localization of abbreviations, metazones, and any idea of timezone _names_ at all (i.e. the string "Eastern Standard Time") is outside the scope of tzcode/tzdata. Other than the fact that these days it would be redundant with CLDR, though an implementation in tzcode to actually print the localized abbreviations and names would still be useful.

Date: Sat, 20 Oct 2012 22:56:39 +1100 From: Edwin Groothuis <edwin.groothuis@riverbed.com> Message-ID: <50829177.2080901@riverbed.com> | Consider that there are current issues with the way that the Australian | timezones are handled in the TZ data because of its ambiguousness (if | such a word exist) with other timezones in the world. We know they're ambiguous. They always have been. There never is, nor ever has been, any attempt to avoid that. In fact, the only reason we have the things at all is because the ancient (US centric) API demanded them to be present. | What is stopping the TZ project from using the unambiguous abbreviations | so that the people who use the TZ database in Australia or on Australian | services don't run into these basic problems anymore? It sends the wrong message - suggests that it is rational to use the abbreviations for some purppose or other, when it isn't. These things should be (when required) displayed to users, and otherwise ignored, code that does otherwise is broken. Hiding the bugs (a little) by making the abbreviations a little less ambiguous, so the code breaks less often, is 100% the wrong thing to do, rather when we have the option (which is not all that often) we should deliberately use ambiguous abbreviations to make erroneous code fail more often, so it can get fixed sooner. Attempting to paper around this issue, by altering some abbreviations so they're not ambiguous is just the same basic approach as the computer manufacturers who "avoided the problems" with code that referenced *0 by making sure there was valid memory at address 0 that processes could access, and putting a null byte there, so *0 and "" even had the same apparent value - as they happened to have on PDP-11's (running unix). Doing that seemed to avoid problems with lots of broken programs, but overall it did a big disservice to the community everywhere, and allowed more & more broken programs to be deployed, rather than assisting getting the problems fixed. Only when we got more systems that refused to go that route, and cause programs containing references to *0 to break did code authors actually get the message and begin to fix those bugs. kre

Date: Fri, 26 Oct 2012 07:19:07 -0400 From: Arthur David Olson <arthurdavidolson@gmail.com> Message-ID: <CAJvZEYk+iZ-W99K=AEt7hH9Nv2NPjFPaRfDGbwW6EEwO2bN4cQ@mail.gmail.com> | continue with EST (rather than UEST or USEST or something else) The obvious name, if we were to insist on qualifying zone abbreviations wth references to location, would be "American Eastern Standard Time" (etc) - abbreviated as AEST... After all it applies in both Canada and the US, so USEST would require a CEST for what is essentially the same thing, and doesn't it also apply in parts of Latin America? So, AEST for Australia and AEST for the US/Canada etc. Or we just leave well enough alone, and leave things as they are. kre