[tz] Undoing the effect of the new alike-since-1970 patch

[Stephen Colebourne]

On Tue, 8 Jun 2021 at 19:21, Paul Eggert <eggert at cs.ucla.edu> wrote:
> On 6/8/21 10:44 AM, Stephen Colebourne via tz wrote:
> > Are you proposing a makefile option to recreate the original source
> > files using the data in backzone?
>
> Not byte-for-byte copies, no. Just a functional copy containing the
> equivalent of what the data would have looked like had the new
> alike-since-1970 patch not been installed.

I'm not worried about the comments if that is what you are thinking
of. I'm more concerned about exactly what the output you are proposing
will contain - it is not clear to me.

At this point, I'm more interested in getting to a resolution that is
suitable for the long term. I've yet to see a willingness to engage on
backwards compatibility - to stop fiddling with the data. A key part
of that is engaging on the topic of what constitutes a minimum set of
IDs. Java, CLDR and probably more need that for their compatibility.
(ie. just reverting this one patch is insufficient to reach a stable
resolution, because of the unfairness of Angola/Slovakia)

Look at it this way, your patch (and probably previous ones) are
making a political statement of the kind you say you don't want. The
file `europe` contains full commentary for Germany:
 https://github.com/eggert/tz/blob/main/europe#L1397-L1452
yet Sweden and Norway get just 2 lines:
 https://github.com/eggert/tz/blob/main/europe#L3383-L3384
with the actual commentary relegated to the semi-trash can of
`backzone`. Where is the fairness in that? I'd also point out that the
file is structured by country, which makes a mockery of the idea that
timezones are not connected to countries.

Stephen