[tz] Unacceptable recent changes

[Lester Caine]

Petr Machata wrote:
> Stephen Colebourne<scolebourne at joda.org>  writes:
>
>> >The point I'm making is that end-users of this data assume it to be
>> >stable and reliable. Moreover, the vast majority of those users do not
>> >care whether the data pre-1970 is accurate or not. Stable yes,
>> >accurate no.
> I don't think you can assume stability either.  We occasionally revisit
> old data to correct them.  There's some guesswork involved in the way
> some zones are defined even in relatively recent past, let alone
> pre-1970, and when better information becomes available, those entries
> are changed.

And the 1970 date is purely artificial itself, just being a convenient zero at 
that point it time.

The whole problem here is that both pre and post 1970 data needs to co exist, so 
why can't it co exist in the one database? When and if more accurate data is 
established then it gets updated, going forwards or back, but we still need 
historic timezone data for looking at say 10 years ago, so why should 1969 
simply stop working? And if 1969 is wrong then it can be fixed.

-- 
Lester Caine - G8HFL
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