proposed changes to tz for Israel, Lord Howe, web page, etc.

Paul Eggert eggert at twinsun.com
Sun Feb 20 06:17:14 UTC 2000


   Date: Sat, 19 Feb 2000 13:48:15 +0000 (GMT)
   From: "Joseph S. Myers" <jsm28 at cam.ac.uk>

   I believe that the following change to comments is implied by my analysis
   and should also be applied.

Thanks.  I'll include that in my next set of proposed patches
unless ado installs it first.

   the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man are not part of the UK but
   form three semi-independent territories ... (with their own TLDs,
   .gg, .je, .im), they should have their own zone names, following
   the principles in the Theory file

To avoid getting into political crossfires, I've been using ISO 3166
to help decide what constitutes a country, and it doesn't list GG, JE,
or IM.  Please see:
http://www.din.de/gremien/nas/nabd/iso3166ma/codlstp1.html

The British Internet top level domains disagree with ISO 3166.  ISO
3166 lists only "GB"; but the British Internet TLDs are .uk, .gg, .je,
.im, and .ac (for Ascension).  This is for historical reasons.  The
corresponding ISO 3166 codes are reserved for future use -- I suppose
it's in case one of the Bailiwicks declares independence.  (:-)

Your comments do suggest that the Theory file should mention ISO 3166.
Here's a proposed patch, which uses the words "to help decide" because
"EU" may be added to ISO 3166 soon but I don't think many people
consider the EU to be a country (yet).

===================================================================
RCS file: RCS/Theory,v
retrieving revision 1999.5
retrieving revision 1999.5.0.1
diff -u -r1999.5 -r1999.5.0.1
--- Theory	1999/08/17 18:09:09	1999.5
+++ Theory	2000/02/20 05:55:44	1999.5.0.1
@@ -198,7 +198,8 @@
 		`-' and `_'.  Do not exceed 14 characters or start with `-'.
 		E.g. prefer `Brunei' to `Bandar_Seri_Begawan'.
 	Include at least one location per time zone rule set per country.
-		One such location is enough.
+		One such location is enough.  Use ISO 3166 (see the file
+		iso3166.tab) to help decide whether something is a country.
 	If all the clocks in a country's region have agreed since 1970,
 		don't bother to include more than one location
 		even if subregions' clocks disagreed before 1970.



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