[tz] Tonga

Paul Eggert eggert at cs.ucla.edu
Wed Sep 20 15:55:38 UTC 2017


Paul.Koning at dell.com wrote:
> As I recall, IETF made that point rather explicitly some time ago, after the Turkey and/or Egypt DST debacle.

Yes, the main tzdb page 
<https://www.iana.org/time-zones/repository/tz-link.html> now says, "If your 
government plans to change its time zone boundaries or daylight saving rules, 
let the mailing list know well in advance. With less than a year's notice there 
is a good chance that some computer-based clocks will operate incorrectly after 
the change, due to delays in propagating updates to software and data. The 
shorter the notice, the more likely clock problems will arise." It goes on to 
cite Matt Johnson's more-detailed blog post "On the Timing of Time Zone Changes" 
<http://codeofmatt.com/2016/04/23/on-the-timing-of-time-zone-changes/>.

Perhaps the above info could be sent on the Tongan government, to give them an 
idea of the problems they'll face if they delay their decision further.


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