Russia autumn 1996 DST patch

[Robert Elz]

    Date:        Wed, 2 Oct 1996 14:23:10 +0400 (MSD)
    From:        =?KOI8-R?Q?=E1=CE=C4=D2=C5=CA_=FE=C5=D2=CE=CF=D7?= (Andrey A. Chernov) <ache at nagual.ru>
    Message-ID:  <199610021023.OAA00834 at nagual.ru>

    Only one requirement will be needed: ascii label must be unique.

I have no idea what the right solution for the timezones for
Moskow should be, but I know this is a fruitless ambition.

Time zone names (abbreviations) are not unique, will never be
unique, and hoping for such a thing, or doing anything at all
assuming such a thing, is pointless, silly, and dangerous.

The zone names should only ever be used as a warm & friendly for
output to humans, so they have some idea whether it the time is
probably in the local zone, some nearby friendly zone, or someplace
else, and even then it doesn't work well.   The abbreviation where
I am is EST now, will be EST in a month when summer time starts and
the zone shifts by an hour, and is not at all related to the EST
that exists 9sometimes) in the eastern part of the US.

Further, if I felt like using Melbourne Standard Time (MST) for
my system I would, then in summer I might use Melbourne Standard
Daylight Time and abbreviate that as MSD.

One of the nice things about the zoneinfo timezone config system,
is that everyone can use whatever they like - if you don't like what
is in the files for your zone, simply change it, it's easy.

On the other hand, any code that attempts to parse time zone
abbreviations should be broken, and broken as frequently as
possible, until people finally give up writing such nonsense.

kre