[tz] tzdb timezone names/identifiers and links

[Brian Inglis]

On 2019-02-20 16:13, Michael Douglass wrote:
> On 2/20/19 17:50, Guy Harris wrote:
>> On Feb 20, 2019, at 2:34 PM, Clive D.W. Feather wrote:
>>> Guy Harris said:
>>>> Maybe this is *another* case where "some applications "misuse" tzdb
>>>> identifiers" and where it might "be better to solve this on a more general
>>>> level such as geo-location<=>timezone mappings", e.g. a meeting date
>>>> shouldn't be tagged with {date/time, tzdb identifier} but with {date/time,
>>>> geographic coordinates}.  I'm not sure whether the geographic coordinates of
>>>> the meeting location are more or less likely to change than the time zone
>>>> rules of that location,
>>> That doesn't always solve the problem; it can make it worse.
>>>
>>> For example, I have a meeting which *I* take part in at my location, but is
>>> booked for 07:00 Seattle time, not 15:00 UK time. I don't want it tagged
>>> with my location.
>> If that is a phone or online meeting, rather than an in-person meeting, it
>> doesn't have *a single* location, right?  At *most*, it has a "central"
>> location, where the people coordinating the meeting reside, or something such
>> as that, but that's not the location where the meeting is occurring.
>>
>> If the expectation is that the calendar software will automatically, through
>> the Magic of the TZDB, show everybody the meeting time at their location, then
>> it's going to have to keep track of the locations of all the participants, so
>> it'll have to get tagged with the location of the (presumed) people in Seattle
>> attending it, and the location of the people in the UK attending it, etc., so
>> that the meeting might be tagged with the "central" location, *and* each
>> participant would be tagged with their location at the time of the meeting.
> 
> Absolutely - one of the intentions of the extensions to the calendar specs.
> 
> In this age of online meetings the attendees (intended) location - at the time
> of the meeting - becomes much more important.
> 
> The location of the meeting itself then becomes a matter of what is most
> appropriate - perhaps the organizers location or a room if some people are local.

My expectation is that the meeting organizer schedules an event at their
reference location(s), in those locations' time zones, and attendees may display
the event in the time zone for their default, current, or other location.

When I say locations, that allows for an event being a flight or trip from one
location to another in a different time zone.

My expectation is that I can associate each location with a time zone for an
extended period of time, and if the time zone in effect at that location
changes, I can change that association, effectively providing my own gazetteer
of time zones for locations of interest to me.

Larger organizations may provide and update gazetteers with their systems so
that I need not associate time zones with locations.

Vendors and distros have the choice of competing by providing superior
gazetteers at their own expense, or they could collaborate to provide superior
gazetteers at reduced expense, and compete by providing superior interfaces and
uses on their systems.

-- 
Take care. Thanks, Brian Inglis, Calgary, Alberta, Canada

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