[tz] Preparing to fork tzdb

[Paul Goyette]

On Mon, 20 Sep 2021, Clive D.W. Feather via tz wrote:

> Tom Lane via tz said:
>>>>    2.  If a resolution cannot be reached directly with the TZ
>>>>        Coordinator, express the concern to the community and attempt to
>>>>        achieve rough consensus regarding a resolution on the TZ mailing
>>>>        list.  The Area Directors of the IETF Applications Area may at
>>>>        their discretion attempt to guide the members of the community to
>>>>        rough consensus.
>
>> Seems to me that we have failed at step 1, and that to the extent that
>> there is any community consensus per step 2, it is against this set
>> of changes.
>
> I'm not convinced that there is even that much consensus. We're hearing from
> the objectors, but - as usual - not from those who approve or aren't affected.
> I'm currently unclear what the issues are, being mostly an observer rather
> than a significant user of the database.

I think I fall into the class of users which you labelled "aren't
affected" although the adverb "directly" might be missing, since to
some degree the whole world is afffected!  My contribution count to
tzdb is - barely - larger than zero, so I'm not a total lurker!
And I am a member of the NetBSD developer community, where tzdb is
included in the base software distribution.  (HOWEVER, I am writing
this note as an individual, and not on behalf of NetBSD.)

I personally don't have a horse in this race, and either revert or
not-revert works for me.  If I had to lean in one direction, I'd
probably lean towards reverting, and thus returning to something
closer to historical conventions.

However, if a split/fork were to happen, I'd certainly follow the
"original" fork, while perhaps browsing the "divergent" fork now and
then just to monitor the situation.  Any attempt I'd be inclined to
further contribute would be directed at the original fork.

Overall, I think a fork of tzdb would be harmful to the community at
large, but I really have no other practical alternatives to suggest
for resolving the conflict.

So, +1 for the approve-or-not-affected category!


+--------------------+--------------------------+----------------------+
| Paul Goyette       | PGP Key fingerprint:     | E-mail addresses:    |
| (Retired)          | FA29 0E3B 35AF E8AE 6651 | paul at whooppee.com    |
| Software Developer | 0786 F758 55DE 53BA 7731 | pgoyette at netbsd.org  |
|                    |                          | pgoyette99 at gmail.com |
+--------------------+--------------------------+----------------------+