[tz] State of Palestine Time zone - need to update

[Brian Inglis]

On 2021-02-12 07:04, David Patte wrote:
> On 2021-02-12 05:14, Paul Eggert wrote:
>> On 2/11/21 4:20 PM, Brian Park wrote:
>>> I don't still don't understand why there is reluctance to add
>>> LINK entries. Wouldn't that resolve most of these requests?
>>
>> We'd keep getting requests, though, if word got out that one could plant 
>> political flags into tzdb simply by asking. Suppose North Korea started 
>> calling Seoul "Kim Il-sung City" on the grounds that it's their city and they 
>> can call it what they want? And that is not a fanciful supposition: North 
>> Koreans seriously suggested doing exactly that in the 1990s after Kim Il-sung 
>> died.
>>
>> At some point we need to say that tzdb is about civil time, not about settling 
>> or documenting other political disputes. We might as well say it now rather 
>> than later.

> I would say that is a poor example. North Korea is recognized worldwide as being 
> a different country than the location of Seoul.
> 
> But there is an organization that is responsible for making decisions on such 
> issues.
> 
> I still don't understand why the maintainers of this database seem so hesitant 
> to recognize the UN's (and its branches) main purpose is to be the party that 
> was exactly set up to be the resolver of such issues, and is duly recognized by 
> nearly every nation on earth for that exact purpose. Its not perfect, but that 
> is its job.
 >
> It clearly seems to me that the maintainers of this database prefer to apply 
> their own anglo-centric and america-centric politics to the data instead of 
> deferring to that responsibility that the party the rest of the world
> recognizes was setup to reduce such public squabbling.

The UN provides a reason and forum for public squabbling by bureaucrats and 
politicians with that as their assigned role. The UN Secretariat says yes to 
demands from and tries to please every one of its about 200 members, even when 
that might interfere with other members' sovereignty, or is against various UN 
principles, as whether those principles are adhered to in any specific case or 
country are decided by UN committees, with political agendas, allies, and foes, 
so it is luckily or unfortunately pretty ineffective in a lot of what some 
countries try to accomplish using it.

I suspect that trade representatives can object to everything down to LOCODEs.
For example, Gaza appears to be the only IL/PS tz location with a UN LOCODE: 
there appears to be nothing for Hebron or Jerusalem, although they may exist 
under latinized local Arabic or Hebrew names, or that of a commercial centre, 
industrial park, or nearby transport hub, to avoid any objections e.g.

	https://service.unece.org/trade/locode/ps.htm

> For the remaining billions of people, and millions of software developers in
> the world, that are not American, the current decision process of this db is
> is truly insulting and arrogant.
The project is for time zone data maintenance, which is unfortunately decided by 
bureaucrats and politicians, sometimes for political reasons, and unfortunately 
political issues sometimes get dragged in by outsiders.
Politics is all about the arrogance of thinking you know better than all others 
how they should live their lives, and insulting all others who objects to those 
views, and object to paying for those holding and espousing those views in an 
insulting manner.

If any of the millions of software developers objected, they could fork this 
project, and set up in competition; same for almost every open source software 
product.
Most of the contributors to open source for some reason seem to be English 
speaking and northern Europeans and North Americans, possibly because of their 
relative openness, freedom, and wealth, with many others spread across the world 
who presumably share the same abilities and situations.

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

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