[tz] Dropping iso3166.tab

[David Patte ₯]

Yes, I understand that may be what you think is acceptable, but it not 
what those that are mandated to debate such political and diplomatic 
items have already decided.

I have no debate about what tz people use in Jerusalem. Its the same as 
what people use is Tel Aviv.
The concern is whether Jerusalem is recognized as an Israeli city, and 
it should not be up to tz to make that decision.

Without delegating responsibility for what country is a country, and 
which city is in a country, we leave the responsibility of making these 
political decisions squarely within the tz list maintainer's hands, and 
the responsibility of running counter to accepted political decisions 
within their hands. This clearly opens this list open to endless 
political debate - which should not be the case.

But by agreeing to only follow the decisions of those whose job it is to 
make such political decisions, the political nature of the database is 
delegated, and cannot be driven by the whims of the maintainers or 
others on this list.

My goal is to reduce the political debate on this list, and leave it to 
the diplomats and the standards committees that are under their control, 
to determine what is a country, and what city is in a country - then 
reflect those decisions in the database.




On 2013-05-21 8:49, Kevin Lyda wrote:
> On Tue, May 21, 2013 at 2:39 AM, David Patte ₯ <dpatte at relativedata.com> wrote:
>> So therefore, I would think that where possible its just simpler to follow
>> recognize international standards (such as the UN) when improving the
>> database.
> I generally agreed right up until there. tzinfo tries to reflect what
> people on the ground think. And I think country codes should reflect
> that.
>
> Say that Floofy (fl) and Fnord (fn) claim ownership of the large city
> of Fubar. I don't see anything wrong with putting Fubar in fl and fn.
> This way people in Floofy and Fnord see the city they expect to be
> there. And at the end of the day that's what tzinfo is for.
>
> In all the examples on the list there exist a large number of people
> who live in those places that operate under the belief that tzinfo
> reflects. They sign contracts, do banking, make appointments and
> generally live their lives in those timezones - even if they
> politically disagree with that belief.
>
> Reflecting reality is not the same as reflecting bureaucracy.
> Reflecting reality is not the same as endorsing reality. Trying to
> twist the tzinfo db into a tool to change reality seems like an
> incredibly bad idea. It should reflect what's on the ground right now,
> not what we might want reality to be.
>
> Kevin
>
> --
> Kevin Lyda
> Galway, Ireland
> US Citizen overseas? We can vote.
> Register now: http://www.votefromabroad.org/
>


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