[tz] Reason for removal of several TZ abbreviations

[Guy Harris]

On Dec 5, 2017, at 12:38 PM, Tim Parenti <tim at timtimeonline.com> wrote:

> On 5 December 2017 at 15:04, Guy Harris <guy at alum.mit.edu> wrote:
>> How about "use a command-line picker", e.g.
>> 
>>         $ tzid "Dusseldorf"
>>         Europe/Berlin
> 
> So… what should `tzid "Disputed City"` return?  This doesn't really do anything solve the (supposed) problem.

To what problem are you referring when you speak of "*the* (supposed) problem"?

Beijing, to pick a city that provokes complaints, is "disputed" in the sense that people complain that there's no "Asia/Beijing", but I'm unaware that there are any disputes as to which tzdb region it belongs in - as per my examples (several *not* chosen randomly :-)), "tzid Beijing" should print "Asia/Shanghai", even if that causes some residents of Beijing to whine about Shanghai being mentioned.

For cities where there's a dispute over which rules apply, this is, in most if not all cases, probably a consequence of a dispute over which government is in charge of the city, i.e. a political dispute.  *That's* the only case I see where "what should tzid return?" would not have an obvious answer.