[tz] Issues with pre-1970 information in TZDB

[Scott Kilpatrick]

In another thread, Paul wrote:

> Locations in countries like Norway and Sweden got special treatment by
being Zones, whereas locations in countries like Angola and Ethiopia
were only Links.

To which Robert Elz asked, why not instead resolve that discrepancy by
restoring full data definitions, in the `africa` file, for Africa/Luanda
and Africa/Addis_Ababa? That seems like a better resolution. After all,
those two IDs had distinct definitions in the past, and then Paul converted
them to Links back in 2014 (see commits [1] and [2], respectively).

But really my question is whether Stephen C. et al would accept such a
change. If Europe/Stockholm *becoming a Link and losing pre-1970 history*
is an unacceptable change to data stability, what about Africa/Luanda
*ceasing to be a Link and gaining pre-1970 history*?

[1]
https://github.com/eggert/tz/commit/94f941ebd1a02356253290333da2977c3ae28aaf
[2]
https://github.com/eggert/tz/commit/6f6f20f0bc739ce3dfd503700b793c5e459e309d

On Thu, Sep 23, 2021 at 1:49 AM Eliot Lear via tz <tz at iana.org> wrote:

>
> On 22.09.21 21:34, Tom Lane via tz wrote:
> > We know for certain that not
> > including backzone will degrade the data for the moved zones.
>
> Unless of course if the data moved is questionable of questionable origin.
>
> Eliot
>
>
>
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