[tz] [PROPOSED] Merge timezones that are alike since 1970

Stephen Colebourne scolebourne at joda.org
Sun May 30 00:24:30 UTC 2021


On Sat, 29 May 2021 at 19:43, Paul Eggert <eggert at cs.ucla.edu> wrote:
> On 5/29/21 2:00 AM, Stephen Colebourne via tz wrote:
> If we insisted on creating a new zone every time there was a different
> country, we'd have a more-complicated database and get into even bigger
> political messes than we already have.

It is hugely "political" to say that Norway or Sweden are of no
importance to tzdb.

>  There was an example of this
> recently in the complaint about why there is no separate tzdb entry for
> Kosovo. I endured quite a bit of vitriol in private email about this.

On Kosovo, the current status is:
"As of 4 September 2020, 98 out of 193 (51%) United Nations (UN)
member states, 22 out of 27 (81%) European Union (EU) member states,
26 out of 30 (87%) NATO member states, and 31 out of 57 (54%)
Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) member states have
recognised Kosovo."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_recognition_of_Kosovo
I would argue that it is already sufficiently widely accepted as a
state to be included in tzdb (under the proposed rule of at least one
non-Link zone per country). It is *your* actions that are making tzdb
more political than it needs to be.

> In the long run we are better off decoupling tzdb entries from political
> issues as much as we can. This will lessen the probability of similar
> vitriol (or worse) in the future.
No it won't. Nor should an easy life for you be a factor in the
decision making process. Time zones are political things, defined by
Governments. And yes, countries sometimes fight wars. This cannot be
hidden or brushed under the carpet.

Please try to understand that tzdb is used for much more than just
getting an offset for an arbitrary meaningless ID. Every part of the
source data is used by downstream systems. Every aspect of it has
meaning.

> We've been moving out-of-scope historical data to 'backzone' for years. It's worked just fine.
And you've had repeated pushback from the list on your ill-advised
"cleanups". I, and others, just want you to stop messing around. This
project isn't your plaything.

I do not believe you have the consensus of the TZDB list to continue
with this patch. It should be reverted entirely.

Stephen


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