FW: Wrong Argentinian DST introduced in version 2008f

Gustavo De Nardin gustavodn at gmail.com
Thu Dec 11 05:02:44 UTC 2008


2008/10/7 Aurelien Jarno <aurelien at aurel32.net>:
> On Mon, Oct 06, 2008 at 09:16:15PM +0700, Robert Elz wrote:
>>     Date:        Mon, 6 Oct 2008 09:31:03 -0400
>>     From:        "Olson, Arthur David (NIH/NCI) [E]" <olsona at dc37a.nci.nih.gov>
>>     Message-ID:  <B410D30A78C6404C9DABEA31B54A2813029A0223 at nihcesmlbx10.nih.gov>
>>
>>   | From: Aurelien Jarno [mailto:aurelien at aurel32.net]=20
>>   | Sent: Monday, October 06, 2008 9:29
>>   | To: tz at lecserver.nci.nih.gov
>>   | Subject: Wrong Argentinian DST introduced in version 2008f
>>   |
>>   | tzdata version 2008f introduced a rule for Argentinian DST based on
>>   | http://www.worldtimezone.com/dst_news/dst_news_argentina03.html
>>   | and
>>   | http://www.impulsobaires.com.ar/nota.php?id=3D57832
>>
>> Not really.  2008f changed the expected start date based upon those.
>> Previous version(s) (certainly 2008e, maybe earlier I didn't check) had
>> the start date from the first Sun in Oct, which is how the legislation
>> apparently passed last December was explained (back last December.)
>
> I have been told the legislation was for one year only, not for this
> year.
>
>>   | Unfortunately those links only speak about rumors of a DST change, there
>>   | is nothing fixed officially, and according to some Argentinian people
>>   | DST may even not happen this year.
>>
>> Unfortunately, summer time is one of those things that people argue
>> about a lot, and last minute changes happen all the time.  Sometimes
>> there's no choice but to guess at what looks most likely, based upon
>> all available information, as expecting to get updates distributed, and
>> installed, everywhere, with just a couple of days (or even weeks) notice
>> is absurd.
>
> IMHO, it is a really bad idea to "guess" the next DST when we don't have
> official information. People from Argentina really know the issue with
> their government and they are ready to cope with last minute changes.
>
> The problem with guessing is that the changes happens at a wrong date
> and at a moment when it is *totally unexpected*. On the contrary without
> trying to guess, the new version of tzdata may comes very late, but at
> least people are aware of possible problems, and *expect* them.

Ah! This is my opinion too, and what I was talking about in the other
("Brazil rule issue") thread.


>> Which is exactly why there's all this trouble in Argentina now, if we
>> had just had 2008f times, no-one would have noticed anything yesterday.
>> It is just that 2008f isn't installed in enough places yet (it is only
>> 3 weeks old) to have affected much - many sites are still using older
>> data from when we believed that the first Sun in Oct was the right rule.
>
> You can't ask people to be always up to date on the tzdata version.
> People update tzdata when they now a DST change will happen, not when a
> date that has been guessed and thus is *unknown* from the lambda user
> comes.
>
>> Hence, some systems turned on summer time yesterday.  Others running
>> either much older tzdata (last year) won't have summer time at all, and
>> others running 2008f (or today's 2008g) will start it in 2 weeks.
>
> So maybe in two weeks we will have the same problem again...
>
>> A huge mess.   If there is anyone actually in Argentina reading this,
>> (Aurelien I don't know where you are, nor Nicolas Alvarez)
>> could you please contact the appropriate govt office and ask - ASAP.
>> Get a reference to something official, written - if available via the
>> web, even better, but even just an authoritative verbal statement would
>> be better than nothing.
>>
>
> I am not in Argentina, I am just relaying requests from Argentinian
> people. Currently there is no official information available because *no
> decision has been taken*.
>
> As usual, the decision will be taken very late regarding to the date of
> the change. What they want is that people *stop trying to guess* a
> possible date for the DST change, and instead just update tzdata when we
> have official data, even if it is really late.

-- 
(nil)



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