TZ database content

[Robert Elz]

    Date:        Fri, 09 Feb 2001 09:50:25 -0800
    From:        "John A. Halloran" <seagoat at primenet.com>
    Message-ID:  <3.0.6.32.20010209095025.00f12d70 at pop.primenet.com>

  | Pasted in here is a complete list of time zones and abbreviations.

(with the offsets from UTC conveniently opposite from the
conventional method - positive is generally east of Greenwich, and
negative west ... except inside unix).

  |     TimeZones(43) = "Australian Eastern Daylight Time - AEDT (-11:00)"

This is quite simply wrong, there is no "Daylight" time in Australia,
there is "Summer" time.

And if you're going to do this...

  |     TimeZones(44) = "Australian Eastern Standard Time - AEST (-10:00)"

Then this one...

  |     TimeZones(8) = "Eastern Standard Time - EST (05:00)"

should be one of
  |     TimeZones(8) = "North American Eastern Standard Time - NAEST (05:00)"
or
  |     TimeZones(8) = "United States Eastern Standard Time - USEST (05:00)"
or perhaps most accurately
  |     TimeZones(8) = "American Eastern Standard Time - AEST (05:00)"

Contrary to what Greg Black thinks, these names are not at all correct.

However, software that sticks "EST" in a mail header, when it means +1000
or +1100 is simply broken.   Everyone should be using only the numeric
zones by now, but for anyone who isn't, RFC821 says "EST" means -0500

Attempting to fix broken software by changing the world's timezone
abbreviations is absurd.

Paul Eggert is generally pretty right, and is here too, except the
Australian legislation does specify names for the zones (just not the
abbreviations) - they are Eastern Standard Time (in winter, and the
surrounding parts of autumn and spring) and Eastern Summer Time (in
summer, and the surrounding parts of autumn and spring).   That is,
on the easy coast of course (except Qld, which has only Standard time).

A good fraction of the rest of these zone abbreviations look to be
simply fictional (USZ1 ???)

kre