[tz] [PATCH] Replace some zones with links when that doesn't lose useful info.

[Paul Eggert]

Stephen Colebourne wrote:
> As we have discussed before, changes like this are disruptive to many
> people. The LMT and early time values are used out there, irrespective
> of their accuracy.

It was discussed at some length, and to some extent we're just repeating 
that discussion now.  There's one thing new, though: we now have had 
significant practical experience.  The earlier set of changes along 
these lines was published in release 2013e (2013-09-19), and it hasn't 
caused significant disruption in the field.  In practice it seems that 
end users don't much care about things like the time zone of Guadeloupe 
in 1899 -- which is probably a good thing, since the pre-2013e database 
was wrong anyway.

I understand that simplifying away spurious pre-1970 timestamps can 
cause more work for detailed regression testing, but that kind of work 
should be routine as the tz database is always mutating for other 
reasons anyway.  Besides, the tail should not be wagging the dog here: 
regression testing should be our servant, not our master.