[tz] Large scale changes proposed in 2014f

Stephen Colebourne scolebourne at joda.org
Sun Jul 27 09:37:50 UTC 2014


On 27 July 2014 08:25, Clive D.W. Feather <clive at davros.org> wrote:
> If we know or have good reason to believe that the data is
> completely bogus, then there's no point in retaining it.

There are two distinct steps here;
1) knowing it is wrong
2) knowing what is right

It is important not to conflate the two.

What many (most?) of the list want is for the change to occur only
when both steps are true. What is proposed is for the change to happen
only when the first step occurs (or is claimed - few of us can
actually judge whether it is wrong).

The reason for requiring both steps to happen before change is that
many (most?) on the place a huge value on stability. We want there to
be the absolute minimum changes necessary to the data, as that
stability is hugely valuable to end-user applications. ie, stability
is the "point in retaining it" you describe.

As an example, consider Sierra Leone
https://github.com/eggert/tz/commit/4b4e789d5c5ee79366b4606d139cbb9eb1d5a28d#diff-f4f52c274b8b0af7593e8d85f45ae7f1L1070
https://github.com/jodastephen/tzdiff/commit/c812da9e12bd6f8aa52fa2dd758e236581c23a29#diff-2bfd47a6358d362c0bd99625a1ab8532L1
where two separate sets of DST affecting 13 years and dates as recent
as 1960 have been obilterated. Where is the discussion of this
specific (huge) change? Where is the justification?

And there are many other examples.

Stephen


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