[tz] [PROPOSED PATCH 1/2] Also distribute code and data in a single tarball

[Paul Eggert]

Tim Parenti wrote:
> concatenating the reference output in a single tarball alongside
> the source dataset would encourage implementations which simply parse the
> reference output, which may be counter to our goals

I don't see how putting the reference output into a separate tarball would 
affect the degree of encouragement. Implementations that wanted to parse the 
reference output could do that regardless of whether it's in a separate tarball.

For what it's worth, the reference output format is extensional, so it can lose 
some of the input's information. For example, the input could specify a special 
rule for the year 2051, info that is discarded by the current cutoff of 2050. So 
as things stand now, in principle the reference output is not a good choice for 
a downstream implementation. (If we change the reference output format to 
capture everything, this obstacle would go away of course.)

By "extensional" I mean this:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extensional_definition