Revisiting Australian time zone abbreviations

[Anand Kumria]

Paul,

On Thu, Feb 17, 2011 at 5:15 PM, Paul Eggert <eggert at cs.ucla.edu> wrote:
> On 02/17/2011 03:18 AM, Anand Kumria wrote:
>
>> I had never heard of the atsb prior to your email.
>
> The ATSB is an important Australian government organization and is
> often in news reports.

As an Australian, I have never heard of it prior to your email.

Nor have I have ever heard it referenced in any news report in
Australia. That is TV, radio and newspapers.

Are you (the tz database maintainers) attempting to say that because
an organisation that many, if not most, Australians would be hard
pressed to identify, the tz database should not be corrected to match
the values in use within Australia?

>>>> The government website of Australia states the time
>>>> zone names for Australia are Australian Eastern Standard Time (AEST),
>>>> ...
>>>
>>> I'm afraid it's not that simple.
>>
>> Actually, it could be.
>
> No doubt it *could* be.  But that's for Australians to do, not us.
> It's not the tz database's job to impose standard names or
> abbreviations on Australians.

Australians HAVE decided.

You pointed out, what you thought were good reasons that various
bodies did not hold a consistent view of time.

The fundamental one, from my point of view, being that
http://australia.gov.au/about-australia/our-country/time says "Sydney,
Australia Time" but when you hover it -- it says "Australian Eastern
Standard Time Sydney (AEST)".

To reiterative, Australians HAVE decided, it is now the tz database's
job to implement that decision.

Thanks,
Anand