[tz] [tz-announce] 2018f release of tz code and data available

[Paul Eggert]

On 10/24/18 5:16 AM, Stephen Colebourne wrote:
> The issue is that virtually no-one knows about those additional
> distributions.

That issue will always be with us; it won't be any different in 2019 or 2020 
than it is now. And we had the same issue in 2011 when we made the transition 
from elsie.nci.nih.gov and changed distribution URLs. Java users did OK back 
then, and I don't see why we need to do this transition differently.

The underlying problem here is that Java-based .zi parsers and operational 
procedures are too tightly coupled to tzdb format details that the Java parsers 
support only imperfectly or with a long lag time, and this problem will continue 
as long as tzdb evolves (which it will). A good way to address the problem is 
for Java to do what every other significant downstream distribution does, which 
is to redistribute the data the way Java wants it, thus decoupling the tzdb 
distribution from the Java distribution. There will be glitches when this 
decoupling is accomplished, regardless of whether it's done in the next tzdb 
release or a dozen tzdb releases from now, and we might as well get started now.