[tz] Ambiguous abbreviations for Australian timezones when daylight savings is in affect
Russ Allbery
rra at stanford.edu
Sun Mar 31 18:12:50 UTC 2013
Tobias Conradi <tobias.conradi at gmail.com> writes:
>> we could well end up getting the same argument again,
> By that reasoning you could oppose any change.
Indeed, which is exactly the point. Standards are the most useful when
they don't change.
I don't particularly care if these abbreviations change, but it's the same
problem as with the naming of Chinese time zone names: there is a cost to
change. Despite it being a horrible idea, I'm sure some software out
there has made assumptions about what abbreviations to expect and will
break if the abbreviations change. Avoiding unnecessary change in
low-level standard software like the tz database is important; it's hard
to know what assumptions have been layered on top of it, given how
ubiquitous it is.
If the abbreviations do change, I agree with Guy: this should be the last
time they ever change short of national legislation clearly and
unambiguously establishing different abbreviations.
--
Russ Allbery (rra at stanford.edu) <http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/>
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