[tz] Proposal for new rules

Paul Goyette pgoyette at juniper.net
Thu Aug 29 20:06:09 UTC 2013


I happen to like the new proposal, although I don't really have 
much influence in the matter.

The new proposal (appears to) restore the recent status-quo, and 
gives us clear guidance on how to move forward.

I also agree that politics cannot be removed from the process. 
Politics is a fact of life, and while we don't necessarily need 
to embrace or encourage it, we certainly need to recognize and 
deal with it.


-----Original Message-----
From: tz-bounces at iana.org [mailto:tz-bounces at iana.org] On Behalf Of Stephen Colebourne
Sent: Thursday, August 29, 2013 12:31 PM
To: Time Zone Mailing List
Subject: Re: [tz] Proposal for new rules

On 29 August 2013 20:17, Paul Eggert <eggert at cs.ucla.edu> wrote:
> I do not favor adding rules that would place further political
> constraints on the tz database's contents.  We already have
> too many problems with political issues that are unrelated to
> the core problem of timekeeping, and we should strive to
> avoid these problems rather than make them worse.

Almost every recent problem you've faced is because you are trying to
ignore the politics. Instead, embrace the political boundaries via
ISO-3166. They are at the heart of time-keeping - just look at how
often "government" occurs in the tzdb comments!

I appeal for others to comment on the proposal, as it really is pretty
darn simple and effective. #1 ensures that every region considered to
be important enough to have an ISO-3166 code is given a full historic
time-zone rule. #2 ensures that no political faux pas occurs by
linking across boundaries.

Stephen





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