[tz] Proposal for new rules

Stephen Colebourne scolebourne at joda.org
Thu Aug 29 19:30:52 UTC 2013


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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