[tz] [PATCH 0/1] Add Asia/Beijing

[James M Leddy]

On 08/13/2012 04:12 PM, Paul Eggert wrote:
> On 08/14/2012 03:49 AM, James M Leddy wrote:
> 
>>  * The common proposed fix is that we should be using "human
>>    presentable" names and have a mapping from these names to the
>>    actual timezones. Since that proposal, indeed since the inception
>>    of desktop Linux/Unix, no one (as far as I know) has actually done
>>    this
> 
> I happened to read this on my laptop which runs Ubuntu 12.04 and uses
> the tz database.  I clicked on the time in the upper right-hand part
> of my screen, clicked on "Time & Date Settings", typed "Beijing", and
> it automatically changed my desktop to Beijing Time aka CST.
> 
> So, not only has it been done, it's been done on a platform that
> your company helps maintain....

True, but it's not exactly the same thing. The first problem is that you
lose this if you don't have Internet connectivity, and on first install
a lot of people expect to install from the CD without Internet.

Then there's the problem that even though you pick Beijing, you still
get the tack on Shanghai. It's hard to tell in China, but pick Miami, FL
or something and you'll see it's still in New York. And we had to hack
around to save the input city so that it comes back correctly. Also if
you click on the map without using the input box, you still get the old
functionality. I'm talking with the indicator-datetime developers to see
if we can include the geonames database on the install medium, but they
asked me to submit here first.

Ubuntu Unity and MeeGo are the only distros that I know of that have
done anything about this, and our solution isn't even that great. Fedora
users, KDE users etc. are still out of luck. More info in bug 892370 :

https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/892370

>>  * we have a link from the Vatican to Rome, even though it
>>    should be pretty obvious that they're the same time zone.
> 
> In hindsight perhaps we should not have had a separate entry for each
> country, as this has resulted in all sorts of nationalistic commentary
> that has little to do with the actual data.  I'd rather not make
> matters worse, though.
> 
>>  It's called "Beijing Time".
> 
> And time in London is called "Greenwich Mean Time".  But we do not
> have a Europe/Greenwich entry.

Fair point. Though I think my overall point about Greenwich residents
not being as confused as Beijing residents or even Shanghai residents
stands though.