[tz] Info regarding TZ database

[Paul_Koning at dell.com]

> On Dec 16, 2014, at 4:17 AM, Lester Caine <lester at lsces.co.uk> wrote:
> 
> tzdist is a working group of IANA currently trying to formalise an API
> to allow TZ data to be supplied as a service. There are demo servers but
> nothing has been formally published yet.
> 
> There is a bit of a sticking point at the moment as to whether the
> service needs to worry about the 'version' of TZ data served up, and the
> original draft simply assumed that the latest version of TZ is all that
> is needed, but I have a problem with that since material published today
> using today's version of TZ may be broken if a later version is used
> without any means of identifying the fact.

“without any means”?  But there is a means, that’s why all well-designed protocols have version numbers.  Any valid tzdist proposal would have to include the tzdata version designation as part of what it provides.

There is a separate possibility that some tzdist client might get confused by a new tzdata entry, but that’s mostly the client’s issue, and possibly tzdata, it has nothing to do with the distribution protocol.

Or are you arguing that tzdist should be a mechanism for distributing obsolete data, alongside current data?  Clearly it could be, but I would be surprised if there were significant interest in that.

	paul