Timezone naming

[J Wunsch]

As Paul Eggert wrote:

> Actually, if anything, `MET' is the US-centric name, since it was chosen
> by an American, whereas `CET' was championed by a European.

:)

> It wasn't an easy decision to change `MET' to `CET'.  However, when I
> researched the subject I found that `CET' was by far the most popular
> name in real-world tradition; the `MET's that I found were usually
> derived from the tz database itself, and were thus suspect.  I'll send
> you some of my results under separate cover (I already sent it to the
> tz mailing list).

I've already been forwarded this discussion before, and the reason is
that i simply don't agree with it, thus i wrote to this list.

Again, the Unix world has a long tradition to use the name `MET', and
by now, most vendors (AIX being the only exception i know) use it
here.  This is nothing you (or we, for that matter) have the power to
change.  Creating even more confusion by breaking what has been usual
for what i've called `cosmetic reasons' is something that will only
cause us support nightmares, but gain absolutely nothing.

You're probably right that `MET' is just a lazy translation of the
German (and Danish and ...) timezone name into English, but that's
apparently what people can memorize.

If at all, you should at least call for some discussion and probably
even vote in a group like de.comp.os.unix (and other country's
counterpart groups, i don't know whether there's a fr.comp.os.unix,
too) first.  That's where the people can be found that will finally be
most affected by your opinion and decision (and that's where the
people are who will finally bug _me_ with their questions, since they
know i'm a FreeBSD core member, and thus expect to get answers from
me).

-- 
cheers, J"org

joerg_wunsch at uriah.heep.sax.de -- http://www.sax.de/~joerg/ -- NIC: JW11-RIPE
Never trust an operating system you don't have sources for. ;-)