[tz] [PATCH] Update Crimea country codes in line with UN A/RES/73/263

Dimitri John Ledkov xnox at ubuntu.com
Fri Mar 26 00:46:28 UTC 2021


Hi,

On Fri, 26 Mar 2021 at 00:09, Paul Eggert <eggert at cs.ucla.edu> wrote:
>
> The underlying problem here is any Ubuntu-based software that is still
> using the long-obsolescent zone.tab file, or that cannot handle more
> than one country code in column 1 of the zone1970.tab file. You didn't
> mention what software was involved, but whatever it is I suggest fixing
> it so that your users' problems go away. Any zone.tab-reading software
> should be upgraded anyway (zone.tab has been obsolescent since tzdb
> 2014f), and you can use this Crimea issue to motivate any stragglers.
>
> Alternatively, you could install the patch that you proposed into Ubuntu
> downstream, and the Ubuntu developers could then deal with this
> political dispute's fallout in an Ubuntu-specific way. Your call.

The zone1970.tab file format feels incomplete to me. Unlike the zone
file format (i.e. "europe"). It feels that it lacks the "UNTIL" field,
as which country codes apply change from time to time.

For example, I'm not quite sure what it means to have "CZ,SK" dual
code for Europe/Prague. It would be more helpful to return CS code for
years 1918–1939 and 1945–1992, and return only CZ from 1993 onwards.
SK code doesn't quite make sense - despite the fact that
Europe/Bratislava is linked to Europe/Prague it would be best to have
separate entries for Europe/Bratislava returning SK & CS codes based
on time.

Or is it just an oversight that Europe/Bratislava is not listed in the
zone1970.tab file, whilst present in the zone.tab file?

Suggestion to just use zone1970 is not helpful, especially since it's
alphabetical sort and will not yield appropriate country code for
Europe/Simferopol pre/post 2014 time periods, and a future period that
will change the predominant code.

Are there plans to add a new zone.tab format that provides UNTIL field?

It would be immensely helpful if there was a top level ISO 3166 two
letter code for Crimean Peninsula. As that would be quite a neutral
way to precisely identify the region which at the moment stands a test
of time. I am writing to the ISO 3166 Maintenance Agency about that
separately.

-- 
Regards,

Dimitri.


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