Minute offsets

[Antoine Leca]

Chris Carrier wrote:
> 
> Markus G. Kuhn wrote:
> 
> > I do not have very strong feelings about the optionality of the minute
> > offset, but my arguments for it are:
> 
> >   - only *very* few countries use it today and time zones are so often
> >     redefined that there is some good hope that the 30-min offset zones
> >     will disappear in 2020 or so. 
>
> I would make minute offsets mandatory, because we are discussing not only
> contemporary but historical time zone data, when minute offsets were more
> common.

If you consider this as an option, you should add the seconds offset!

Until 1978 (?) for some applications, Paris time was in official use;
and it's defined as GMT+00:09:21 (I don't know what happen with the 10
leap seconds on 1972-01-01 ;-).

On the other side, I don't consider it's worth the value, if you want MHO.


> Also IMHO minute offsets are not necessarily a Bad Thing; a small
> country without any of its territory going through an hourly meridian but with
> territory going through a minute offset might be better served by the minute
> offset zone; Portugal and Ireland, for example, fit GMT-0:30 closer than GMT
> or GMT-1.

I won't count India as a small country :-), but I understand this is the 
very reason for this country to be in a half-hour offset (I think the
other options is to have two time zones, clearly a bad thing, or
advantaging a side of the country instead of the other...)


Antoine