[tz] Namibia Time Zone

[Paul Eggert]

On 04/04/2018 03:29 AM, Mark Plaatje wrote:
>
> Kindly update your database to reflect that no Daylight Savings Time 
> will be effected in 2018.
>
This was already done in tzdb release 2017c dated 2017-10-20. We suggest 
that governments announce time zone changes a year in advance, to give 
enough time for the relevant updates to make their way to users, and to 
help avoid the sort of confusion that you observed in Namibia last 
weekend. Please make this known to the officials in your government.

Here's more of the story, for those on the Time Zone Mailing List 
unfamiliar with the Namibian situation. Although this autumn Namibia did 
not change change its clocks and stayed at UT +02, on 2018-04-01 at 
02:00 local time many cell phones and other electronic devices 
automatically switched to UT +01 anyway. Namibia's leading cell service 
MTC blamed the confusion on older (non-updated) Android devices that 
were still using the equivalent of tzdb 2017b or earlier. MTC issued a 
statement saying "the onus is on the device manufacturers to effect 
these time zones on their end, following communications supplied to them 
by the government about time changes." The snafus would have been 
avoided had users updated to tzdb 2017c or later.

Unfortunately some of the devices will never be updated, as cell phone 
manufacturers routinely drop support for phones that are still in use; 
for example, Samsung no longer issues Android updates for the Galaxy S6 
which debuted in 2015 and was sold until last year. Older devices will 
therefore continue to contain out-of-date time zone data. You might try 
contacting Samsung and the other manufacturers to try to fix this sort 
of problem; unfortunately, I doubt whether you'll have much luck. In the 
meantime you can continue to advise users of older Android phones to use 
Johannesburg time.

References:

Changes to the tz database. 
https://data.iana.org/time-zones/tz-link.html#changes

Johnson M. On the timing of time zone changes. 
https://codeofmatt.com/2016/04/23/on-the-timing-of-time-zone-changes/

Kahiurika N. Confusion over time change. The Namibian. 2018-04-03. 
https://www.namibian.com.na/65942/read/Confusion-over-time-change

Fuller D. Samsun Galaxy S6 family officially hits end of life. Android 
Headlines. 2018-04-02. 
https://www.androidheadlines.com/2018/04/samsung-galaxy-s6-family-officially-hits-end-life.html