[tz] Theory - proposal to delete the reference to population

[Kevin Kenny]

Could I join the chorus of people asking for a separate mailing list for
release announcements?

Because I have absolutely no interest in conducting the historical
research to catalog what time zone was observed by the 1971 French 
expedition to Heard Island, or engaging in a debate over whether
something that is called a 'location' could ever also be called
a 'place', or enumerating every inch of ground gained and lost in a
civil war between factions that observed different time zones.
I care about the actual setting of the clock in places, (locations,
sites, venues, locales, and other spatial designations) where
my software has a user base.

I don't want to assert that an autistic compulsion to know the time
everywhere for all of history is not a legitimate need; that is
a political question beyond my pay grade, and ties into the broader
question of "neurodiversity" - whether autism, schizophrenia, and
other disintegrative conditions ought to be labeled as "disorders"T
or merely "differences." Nevertheless, I'd like the ability to post
letters without needing to enter into a long discussion of fine
details of philately with a stamp collector. Moreover, the need to
have a bright-line classification of all the details of time zone
observance for all of history is bound to fail for reasons already
stated: the world simply is a complex and ambiguous place, and the
answers to the "edge cases" will be at best equivocal.