[tz] Why did you rename Russian zone name abbreviations

[Alexander Belopolsky]

On Wed, Nov 2, 2016 at 4:17 PM, Paul Eggert <eggert at cs.ucla.edu> wrote:

> However, abbreviations like "VLAT" do not correspond to fixed UTC
offsets, and this is something that English-speakers are typically not
expecting or accustomed to.


There may be exceptions historically, but as a rule Russian timezones are
defined as fixed offsets from Moscow, so when Moscow Time changes, so do
all the timezones.  So VLAT stays at MSK+7 even though it may not have
always been UTC+10.  For an average user in Russia, the meaning of MSK+7
and VLAT is fairly clear, but +10 does not make much sense.  Since you kept
MSK and users are expected to know that historically it has been at
different UTC offsets, it does not make sense to reject zones that are at a
fixed offset from it.

> Yes. I invented these abbreviations. I didn't use any formal procedure.
The (now-deprecated) guideline ...

On a lighter note, it reminded me of this scene:

[image: Inline image 1]
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