[tz] TZDB use cases

[Paul Eggert]

On 10/4/21 16:00, Stephen Colebourne via tz wrote:

> there is, I believe, a critical difference here
> between the US view of timezones and the European one. In the US,
> timezones do not follow the boundary of the whole country, nor even
> States. In Europe, by contrast, timezone boundaries are very much
> driven by country boundaries.

Certainly country boundaries affect timezone boundaries. But even in 
Europe it's not entirely true that the ISO 3166 country boundaries 
determine timezone boundaries. For example, Busingen is in Germany (DE) 
but observes Swiss (CH) time. There are several other examples of 
timezones crossing national boundaries in Europe, including Croatia, 
Luxembourg, and Slovenia. Conversely, Spain has multiple Zones with 
borders that are not country boundaries.


> one thing I don't want
> to see in tzdb is an attempt to force the US model onto Europe.

Yes, and we discovered this long ago with tzdb. We started out with a 
US-centric model with timezones like "US/Pacific", then discovered that 
the US-centric model didn't work as well elsewhere.