Is more detailed timezone history desired?
Alois Treindl
alois at astro.ch
Thu Mar 10 21:53:52 UTC 2005
regarding my project to extend the details of timezone history
in tzdata, a first question:
Is it desirable, in the eyes of current tzdata maintainers, to add such
extensions?
Example:
For Germany, tzdata has currently only one zone, Europe/Berlin
In fact, we can differentiate several zones in Germany with different
timezone histories. I name only one difference for each:
Germany/Baden LMT to 1891 march 15
8e24 meridian to 1892 april 1
CET ...
Germany/Bayern LMT to 1891 march 15
11e34 meridian to 1892 april 1
CET ...
Germany/Wurtemberg LMT to 1891 march 15
9e11 meridian to 1892 april 1
CET ...
Germany/Rheinlandpfalz LMT to 1891 March 15
8e26 meridian to 1892 april 1
CET to 1919 Jan 1
GMT to 1927 Apr 9 # french occupation of Rhineland
CET ...
There are more differences for
- East Germany in 1945 and 1947
- parts of Germany which now belong to Poland (after 1945)
- parts of Germany which now belong to Russia (after 1945)
- Saarland province
etc.
All these differences concern periods before 1970.
--------------------
For France, tzdata has one zone.
In fact, there are about 50 different areas with different timezone
history. Most of the differences concern the years 1940 - 1944 during
the second world war, when the areas under German occupation changed,
with the progress of the German front in 1940, the progress of the
allied front in 1944, and the border between german occupied France and
the area under control of the Vichy government changed between 1942 and
1944 in various steps.
The data exist and are well documented, but a large set of zone names
will be required to express them in tzdata.
-------------------------
These are just a few examples of what needs to be done of tzdata should
get a more complete representation of timezone history.
More information about the tz
mailing list