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

[Paul Eggert]

Brian Inglis wrote:
> Perhaps we need to flag the initial LMT offset in each zone, whether
> specified or linked, rather than explicitly specifying it

That would be good if we were designing the format now, but the problem 
is backwards compatibility with all the existing systems out there.

One possible way around this would be to say that the initial offset is 
flagged if its abbreviation is "LMT".  In this case, which is typical, 
an application can safely ignore the offset in favor of any better 
information that it has, such as geographical coordinates.  This would 
bless existing practice and wouldn't require changes to the code or 
data, though the documentation would need to be changed.  (In the 
current database "LMT" also stands for "Lima Mean Time" and for "Lisbon 
Mean Time" but these aren't initial offsets -- see Europe/Lisbon and 
America/Lima.)