[tz] *Off topic* A little respect ...

Martin Burnicki martin.burnicki at burnicki.net
Tue Jun 25 07:38:20 UTC 2019


Paul.Koning at dell.com wrote:
> I wonder if it would be helpful to discuss this more explicitly in the THEORY file.  For example:
> 
> ---
> The goal of the TZ database is to reflect "reality on the ground" in each region.  It makes no judgment about the legal or diplomatic status of any administration in any region.  
> 
> TZ rules may be marked with the name of a place, and any other place that uses the same rule at a given point in time may then also refer to that rule by this name.  Such a marking has nothing to do with any political question.
> ---
> 
> This might make it a bit more explicit that the questions just raised are out of scope, and allows them to be dismissed with a reference to a written policy.  We already do this for zone names.  Not that it stops the issue from being brought up over and over, but at least it offers a quick way to answer them.
> 

This sounds like a good idea, in my opinion.

I also understand the basic facts, i.e. that the human readable zone
names are only used as a kind of index/identifier, and the names to be
displayed come from a different source.

Anyway, this kind of discussion comes up over and over indicating that
folks may not be aware of this fact.

Some time ago I joined a conference where one of the talks highlighted
the possible cultural effects of technical decisions, e.g. in
organizations that claim to be international, but are dominated by U.S.
citizens, and representatives from countries that are not U.S.-friendly
may vote against proposals just because they were made by "the U.S.".

Cases like this may enforce this behavior, IMO, and I think that's a
pity. Eventually this would be considered differently if a part of the
U.S. would have been occupied by some other country, and a foreign index
name appeared in the DB for a region that was still considered as
belonging to the U.S.

I'd like to make clear that of course, personally I'm not against the
U.S. and I can live with these region names. I'd just like to bring this
aspect/view to your attention.

There are actually so many cases where the work of may years of
successful collaboration is damaged just because it's not possible to
integrate the point of view of different folks, so eventually the TZDB
project could slowly move into a direction where cases like this can be
taken into account.

Martin


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