[tz] tzdist and tz at iana

[Paul Eggert]

On 09/07/2016 11:35 AM, Lester Caine wrote:
> tz was always viewed as the primary source for tzdist, until there IS a
> primary source we can't start to create mirror sites.

But there is a primary source for tz: the latest release as described at 
https://www.iana.org/time-zones. This consists of the two gzipped 
tarballs that we've been talking about, currently the 2016f release. 
These tarballs can easily be mirrored elsewhere.

A complete tzdist public server would need to do more than just 
mirroring tz releases. That would be a bigger project, one outside the 
scope of tz proper.

> We need a master that can provide
> the complete history of changes to tz data properly identified, or at
> least one starting from a current live version.
The iana.org website publishes all the tz releases that we've been able 
to get our hands on. Some older releases have been lost, alas, but I 
think we have every release published since 1999. For details, look for 
the string "is missing!" in the NEWS file.