<div dir="ltr">Shouldn't the standard be correct time? If politics can assert influence to the point where it breaks the code, then I think bowing to political pressure should be avoided. Politicians do all sorts of stupid things. A friend of mine who was a chemical engineer once told me about the foolishness of an EPA lawyer who once said that a pH of 7.0 wasn't low enough saying... "If you can get it down to 7, why can't you get it down to zero?".</div>
<div class="gmail_extra"><br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Wed, Aug 14, 2013 at 12:04 AM, <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:random832@fastmail.us" target="_blank">random832@fastmail.us</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
<div class="im"><br>
On Tue, Aug 13, 2013, at 17:32, Paul Eggert wrote:<br>
> enh wrote:<br>
> > Android currently uses zone.tab to get a list of time<br>
> > zones in use in a given country.<br>
><br>
> Yes, as does tzselect (which is in the tz code).<br>
> This continues to work with the proposed changes:<br>
> zone.tab still lists all time zones in use in a<br>
> given country, and every entry in that list continues<br>
> to work.<br>
<br>
</div>The problem is, most tools that use it list city names, and that is not<br>
likely to change.<br>
<div class="im"><br>
> Marc Lehmann wrote:<br>
> > reducing the quality of the tz distribution(s)<br>
> > (which were beyond outstanding) for political<br>
> > reasons<br>
><br>
> No real reduction in quality is being proposed.<br>
> There's no significant difference in behavior between<br>
> the current and proposed data.<br>
<br>
</div>----<br>
<br>
What happened here is _you_ made a blunder in 1995, by rigidly applying<br>
the "most populated city" rule [ignoring the principle of leaving small<br>
violations like a hypothetical Rome vs Milan alone] to a city you<br>
believed was the most populated one in the region while ignorant of the<br>
dispute as to whether, in fact, it is in the region.<br>
<br>
This went unnoticed for a while, and when it was pointed out, you<br>
covered for it by trying to turn "politics" into a massive bogeyman<br>
rather than going for the simple non-disruptive solution of causing the<br>
database to once again not comment on the status of Jerusalem.<br>
<br>
The idea that no reduction in quality is being proposed is ridiculous.<br>
The reality of the fact that country codes and city names are listed<br>
alongside each other by the vast majority of tools that use zone.tab<br>
should not be ignored. And politics is not a significant enough issue<br>
often enough to justify completely destroying the "Each region is only<br>
in one country" rule rather than simply avoiding naming them after<br>
cities in disputed border regions.<br>
</blockquote></div><br></div>