[tz] Merged 1970+ time zones should always return -1 pre-1970

Magnus Fromreide magfr at lysator.liu.se
Wed Sep 29 13:42:33 UTC 2021


On Wed, Sep 29, 2021 at 12:12:48PM +0200, Eliot Lear via tz wrote:
> 
> On 29.09.21 12:05, Derick Rethans via tz wrote:
> > I understand that for some use cases, people might want the smallest
> > possible binary size. Make a switch for*that*  use case instead, with
> > the default being what we already had pre 2021b, or potentially even
> > undoing some of the other destructive changes that have been brought in
> > since you took over as TZ Coordinator.
> 
> SOME use cases?  MOST use cases.  The TZDB has always been meant to be small
> to fit on the smallest devices, which by the way, used to be rather large
> devices like Sun 3/50s.  Now those small devices might be watches, lawn
> mowers, and other devices that FAR and away exceed the PHP user base.

If the intention is to be lean then the answer is to use the build flags
to strip out all pre-1970 data.

This provides a fairness advantage since no locales are more equal than any
other.

It is also easier to explain to users that nobody get data for pre-1970
than to explain why there are data for some completley unrelated place.

/MF


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