[tz] [PROPOSED] Merge timezones that are alike since 1970

[Steffen Nurpmeso]

Derick Rethans wrote in
 <alpine.DEB.2.23.453.2106031721460.2842 at singlemalt.home.derickrethans.nl>:
 |On Wed, 2 Jun 2021, Steffen Nurpmeso via tz wrote:
 |> Steffen Nurpmeso wrote in
 |>  <20210528222347.U4cDq%steffen at sdaoden.eu>:
 |>|Stephen Colebourne wrote in
 |>| <CACzrW9BnYgeYEcnfzDyVB6J4r2i_dZfnCE5jBDC-f6pdbAB+Uw at mail.gmail.com>:
 |>||This change would make sense if no pre-1970 data was available for any
 |>||zone (including LMT). But instead what users get is the data of
 |>||somewhere else.
 |>||
 |>||For example, Norway's and Sweden's time zone history is being wiped
 |>||out in favour of that of Germany. Can no-one here see the political
 |>||sensitivity in that?
 |> 
 |> I find it astonishing that this comes up over and over again.
 |> Like i said in 2019, Paul Eggert once said something about numeric
 |> IDs.  I like the idea of giving an anonymous ID to unique timezone
 |> "paths", and instead using links which point to the paths.  You
 |> know, what now is Europe/Berlin would be whatever airplane
 |> registration, and Europe/Berlin /Stockholm /xy would simply point
 |> to that, for example Europe/001.
 |> Whereas i do not think this would stop problems (if new paths
 |> would have to be introduced which can only be linked to one
 |> location that someone does not want to be linked), it would not be
 |> that apparent.
 |
 |FWIW, the issue here isn't about the naming of zones. It is about 
 |removing historical data of one country, and replacing it by the 
 |historical data from a different country.

You only have a string, either from $TZ or some direct user
selection.  You link this string to a set of rules.
It happens that if you move the mask of the rules back and forth,
the number of paths through the set of rules grows or shrinks.
As long as you can link name->rules, and, at the time the data is
packaged, rules->name, everything is fine, is it?
I have no idea how one could end up with Europe/Berlin when the
initial TZ was Europe/Stockholm, really.  (I have not looked into
that for now quite a lot of years, too, however.  But as i recall
you have by-zone begin/end tuples into the packed data.)

Where is this "they are only ids, they are only ids?"
They are only ids, no?  If they are not, then they should be
anonymized and the name->rules has to happen at packaging time.
So if a small computer, say, a refrigerator, wants to pack data
"from now on", it can ship a very small set of rules.

 |> And do not get me started on the ship-hating Britons either.
 |
 |I don't hate ships.

Oh the terrible pain due to Britons wrecking beautiful Flying
P-Liners!  The beauty!, lost to beasts.  It is a shame.
But, am i complaining?  We say Vaterland (father's land) not
Mutterland (mother's land), otherwise i would say sometimes facts
have to put on the table, and pointing with a finger onto Germany
just misses the three fingers that point back.
Cheerio.

--steffen
|
|Der Kragenbaer,                The moon bear,
|der holt sich munter           he cheerfully and one by one
|einen nach dem anderen runter  wa.ks himself off
|(By Robert Gernhardt)