[tz] Data loss on FTP Server

[Brian Inglis]

On 2017-10-25 12:52, Paul Eggert wrote:
> On 10/24/2017 05:38 PM, Kim Davies wrote:
>> Is retrieving old versions of the tzdb a common use case?
> 
> Reasonably common, at least for software archaeologists. I would do it all
> the time if I didn't have the old versions already cached. Though I'm not a
> typical user....
> 
> If the 2017c release is here:
> 
> https://www.iana.org/time-zones/repository/releases/tzdb-2017c.tar.lz
> 
> then one might expect this URL to list all the releases:
> 
> https://www.iana.org/time-zones/repository/releases/
> 
> Could we get this to work?

That would be a good start, and allow the following part of the web page to be
useful:
"Distribution
We provide access to the Time Zone Database via three methods:
    HTTP: http://www.iana.org/time-zones"
which is currently a self reference to the explicit links above on the web page.

If the web site also had HTTP server or HTML redirections from
tz{code,data,db}-latest.tar.?z to tz{code,data,db}-yyyyr.tar.?z
which returned 304 Not Modified or 307 Temporary Redirect (keep using the
original URI) status codes that would allow those who want to get and check
explicit versions to quickly quit most days of the year, as we do currently with
FTP.

-- 
Take care. Thanks, Brian Inglis, Calgary, Alberta, Canada