[tz] Fiji DST Oct 26

[Paul_Koning at dell.com]

On Oct 14, 2014, at 11:11 PM, Ken Rylander <ken at lajbans.com.au> wrote:

> ...
> The latest information we received said that the government would always give 2 months notice before DST. I am not sure they have, since DST was re-introduced in 2009. But leaving that aside, their reasoning would be that status quo, means no DST.
> 
> So even though the TZDB prediction was completely logical when put in place last year, as it stands now, a best guess for an outside observer (as myself), would be that there will be no DST this year. Or possibly, that there will be DST, but that it will start later in the year.

Yes, that makes sense.  In the past, we had no information about the way the authorities viewed this matter.  Now, based on your data, we do — namely that there will be no DST in any particular year unless there is an explicit decision that there will be.  In other words, the old assumption (same rule from one year to the next unless superseded) is now known not to be the right one, and the right one instead is “Fiji DST rules should all be of the form ‘this year only’”.

That’s real data and something we can handle.  It would be a good idea to communicate that to the authorities (once the change has indeed been made) so they know we did this in response to their feedback.  And it will also help make the point that it’s now up to them to communicate if they do intend to have DST, and to try to do so with a useful lead time.  Your own experience can help explain why the lead time is important.

	paul