proposed time zone package changes (Argentina, Mauritius, Niue, Syria)

[Ezequiel Colombo]

 <derick <at> php.net> writes:

> 
> On Wed, 8 Oct 2008, Nicolas Alvarez wrote:
> 
> > Olson, Arthur David (NIH/NCI) [E] wrote:
> > >> Why is there a rule for Oct 2008* if there is nothing officially known?
> > > 
> > > The rule reflects the sense that Argentina is likelier than not to 
observe
> > > DST, even though nothing is officially known. As indicated in the 
proposed
> > > change letter, there'll be a further update if Argentina does something
> > > different than what's now in the Rules.
> > 
> > So basically the current tzdata has a *guess* at when it *might* be.
> > 
> > As you probably know, many operating systems had their time wrong last week
> > because tzdata said DST would start on the 5th. Ubuntu took days to update
> > the tzdata since the report. The current package says it will start on the
> > 19th.
> > 
> > If the government doesn't say *anything* about DST, what will you do? 
Change
> > the rules on the 18th to remove the DST? Do you know how much time it will
> > take for all distros to have it? Definitely more than a day, so on the 19th
> > we'll have the same mess again.
> 
> I would have to agree with that - it would be better *not* to have the 
> rule for switching to DST in 2008 in there at all to prevent confusion 
> when people update to the new 2008h and their clocks switch incorrectly 
> on the 19th. 
> 
> regards,
> Derick
> 

I strongly agree with Nicolas, the event last week was caused by a previous 
*guess* as you can see here (http://article.gmane.org/gmane.comp.time.tz/2015) 
and has been causing several problems in our systems these days. Our government 
hasn't released any new law describing DST for this year so there isn's any 
reason to include 2008 (and future) Rules for Argentina.

In my case i haven't included the '08s Rule in my tzdata last year, but i'm 
using some JAVA software that has included it in their tzupdater tool. Now i 
have to wait for a fixed tzdata and then wait for SUN to release the tzupdater 
tool including that tzdata.

Please do not make the same mistake twice, the rules should be based on laws or 
formal government announcements.

Thanks
ezequiel