[tz] input needed on creation of a new sub-package for raw zone data

[Barry Allard]

Yes.

Packagers: Please keep it compatible with what iana tarball updaters (such
as tzupdater, various language packages) expect but as a directory: minimal
changes maximize portable reusability and minimize support/maintenance for
everyone. And please don't collide file hierarchy by breaking existing
conventions but make it sensible like:

/usr/share/iana-tzinfo-src/latest
--symlink->
/usr/share/iana-tzinfo-src/20NNz

This makes it unambiguous about what it is what and allows for
rolling-release upgrades without breaking production processes that cannot
survive system "static" shared data files randomly disappearing beneath
them.

Barry Allard
On Mon, May 22, 2017 at 10:54 AM Brian Inglis <
Brian.Inglis at systematicsw.ab.ca> wrote:

> On 2017-05-22 07:03, Patsy Franklin wrote:
> > I'd appreciate community input on this plan. Ideally if others decide
> > to also ship a similar subpackage we can use a common naming
> > convention and install directory.
> >
> > We are planning to ship a new subpackage for users who want to have
> > access to the raw zone data files e.g. leapseconds, and in a
> > pre-determined install location e.g. /usr/share/zoneinfo/zonedata/.
>
> How about using /usr/share/tzdata{,-src}/ maybe with subdirectories
> tzdata-2017b, etc.
>
> > The raw zone data is useful for users designing their own interfaces
> > on top of this data. The broadest flexibility is offered by the raw
> > zone data, and while the compiled binary data is versioned and more
> > stable, some users have expressed a request for the raw zone data.
> > The understanding is that the raw zone data format may change.
> >
> > In summary:
> > Our current plan is to use -zonedata in naming the subpackage, For
> > example, tzdata-zonedata-2017b-1.el7.
>
> How about tzdata-src-2017b...?
>
> > We plan to install the files in this subpackage under
> > /usr/share/zoneinfo/zonedata/.
>
> Adding zonedata does not add any useful information about the contents
> and storing under /usr/share/zoneinfo/ could be confusing as there are
> already subdirectories posix and right holding copies of standard and
> leapsecond compensated binary data files, so TZ=posix/... and
> TZ=right/... are valid zones, and users may expect something similar to
> happen using TZ=zonedata/... which would be unfortunate.
>
> > Just as an example we would ship the following files:
> > LICENSE
> > version
> > africa
> > antarctica
> > asia
> > australasia
> > europe
> > northamerica
> > southamerica
> > pacificnew
> > etcetera
> > backward
> > systemv
> > factory
> > backzone
> > iso3166.tab
> > leapseconds
> > leap-seconds.list
> > zone1970.tab
> > zone.tab
>
> README, CONTRIBUTING, NEWS, and Theory should be included, also
> tz-how-to.html which documents how to define and use the sources.
> leap-seconds.list should be a (symbolic?) link to the canonical file
> version leap-seconds.<timestamp> e.g. leap-seconds.3692908800.
>
> --
> Take care. Thanks, Brian Inglis, Calgary, Alberta, Canada
>
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