[tz] How long will the rearguard formats continue be provided?

[Pramoth Murali]

Hello! Our team utilizes a custom version of tzcode and a calendar utility
that don't support negative DST offsets that was brought back in 2018e nor
the 2018f fallback transactions Japan rules that were at 25:00 hour. We
utilized 2018i rearguard-format version and we were able to utilize 2018i
with our parsers.


The 2018i announcement mentions that the rearguard is intended to be a
temporary transition aid; that raises fear if we have to patch one of the
upcoming tzdata releases that don't provide a rearguard with similar fixes.


While we are planning to work on fixes for our timezone parsers; in order
to ensure we have enough leeway for our new solutions, we would be curious
to know how long will these rearguard versions (with no negative offsets)
continue to be provided?
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