New home for time zone stuff by 2012?

[Bennett, Billy]

Robeert Elz said:

>> I know it isn't actually urgent just yet (given we apparently still
have another 2 years with ado managing things), but despite all the
discussion, and noise, we have still have absolutely zero volunteers for
someone to be the one who will take over from ado when he eventually
decides to step down.
>> Don't be shy, feel free to suggest yourself for the position...

I'm available.  

Characteristics -
(1) I turn 50 on 5 Nov 2009 so I guess I can squeak in on the age
requirement.
(2) I'm married and have two teenage kids so I can take some abuse; but
I'm more used to being ignored than ignoring - I'll have to work on
that.
(3) I'm on the net at least a few hours every day

Ommissions -
(1) I have some c experience (coding professionally and personally since
1978), have read most of the tzcode archive and written some of my own
functions to use tzdata.
(2) I think there are enough download areas available that we wouldn't
need a company sponsorship.  I'd like to see multiple spots, like
sourceforge and savannah for example (these are just examples, the real
locations would be determined later).  If it is corporately owned, I'd
need to get a few assurances.

Positives -
(1) Of all the volunteers so far, I am undoubtedly the best qualified
(unfortunately, the same logic dictates I am undoubtedly the least
qualified but I won't mention that).

The list of positives will need to be revisited once the applicants come
pouring in.

Other - 

The original email listed a few additional items:

	Data maintenance - this would be the timezone data, I can write
the rules as needed.
	Data distribution - this would be the download server, as I said
above I'd like to see a couple of public areas and some volunteer
mirrors
	Code maintenance - I would set this up under the version control
system available at the server hosting the files
	Code distribution - cvs and subversion would allow code to be
fetched, as well as the tarfile typically provided for download
	Mailing list maintenance - have run majordomo and postman
mailing list servers before, would likely use the home of the repository
if it provided such a thing 
	Mailing list hosting - same as maintenance above, most services
like sourceforge and savannah do provide some mailing list capability
	Standards work (for example, tweaking POSIX TZ environment
variables so Godthab can be represented) - this would need to be group
work, not just me
	Code enhancement (for example, year zero work and Julian
calendar work)- I can work on this, but as above would like group input.

And wrt to the ps from Mr. Elz regarding umbrella organisations, I am in
complete agreement.

Thanks,
=Billy Bennett   

-----Original Message-----
From: Robert Elz [mailto:kre at munnari.OZ.AU] 
Sent: Thursday, September 03, 2009 1:37 PM
To: tz at lecserver.nci.nih.gov
Subject: Re: New home for time zone stuff by 2012? 

I know it isn't actually urgent just yet (given we apparently still have
another 2 years with ado managing things), but despite all the
discussion, and noise, we have still have absolutely zero volunteers for
someone to be the one who will take over from ado when he eventually
decides to step down.

Don't be shy, feel free to suggest yourself for the position...

As I see it, the characteristics that we're looking for are ...

1) someone likely to be able to continue in the position for
   10 years or so (beyond 2012) at least - so that probably puts an
   upper age limit of around 50 or so (today) unless you're planning
   on continuing to do this after retirement

2) someone patient, and not flustered - and who can handle (some)
   abuse without running away or responding - that is, with the
   ability to calmly listen to what people say, and then ignore
   most of it, extracting just the important points.

3) someone who uses the net most of the time, and typically has it
   available 365 days a year (366 in leap years) - so that urgent
   changes can get made without too much delay (the occasional day
   off is OK, and we can arrange a deputy for vacations, but you
   cannot be so busy that you have no time for processing anything.)

Note two things I have deliberately omitted from that list - you don't
really need to know much about timezones, of the tz library functions,
or C coding, or ... there are plenty of people who can, and will, supply
the initial information, and then review that provided by others.
Knowledge can't hurt, but isn't essential.   And second, no mention
of network connectivity, server availability to make the distribution
available, or anything like that - finding the person is the hard part,
once that is done, if it is needed (or becomes needed later) we will
find the server support needed for the mailing list, data distribution,
etc, that stuff is all easy.

If anyone has anything else that should be added to the job description,
feel free...

kre

ps: on umbrella organisations (which we don't really need, and certainly
not right now) one issue to take notice of is ownership of the data (the
collection, rather than individual facts).  I know the IETF would want
to blast ISOC copyright notices on everything (access would still be
free, but everything they do gets copyrighted by them).  I have no idea
what the unicode consortium's position would be, but I wouldn't be
surprised to see something similar.   Currently the data files are all
copyright free, licence free, just available - I'd personally prefer to
keep it that way.