[tz] Preparing to fork tzdb

dpatte dpatte at relativedata.com
Tue Sep 21 02:57:51 UTC 2021


Maybe you are late to the game, but there was no reliable source of historical timezone data except for tz. This source of historical data is unfortunately, step by step, being scrubbed in tz.Numerous applications for historical research (astronomy, astrology, family history, general recent history since the 1800s) depend on having historical tz data, even pre-1970 data.If tz is not going to be the repository for this data, then tz must be formed so that this historical data has a place to be captured.When I read an astronomical journal and read of a bolide sighting in 1957 at 7:30 PM in haiti, it is important that I can attach that to a ut in 1957. But if it's now in the 'merged data' I am now out of luck.This is my biggest issue (of several) with the most recent changes.Sent from my Galaxy
-------- Original message --------From: Watson Ladd via tz <tz at iana.org> Date: 2021-09-20  19:23  (GMT-05:00) To: Howard Hinnant <howard.hinnant at gmail.com> Cc: Time Zone Mailing List <tz at iana.org> Subject: Re: [tz] Preparing to fork tzdb On Mon, Sep 20, 2021 at 9:51 AM Howard Hinnant via tz <tz at iana.org> wrote:>> The C++20 standard has adopted the IANA timezone database (not the code) as the basis for a major part of its API:  http://eel.is/c++draft/time.zone#general-1>> I plea for stability.  That doesn’t mean no changes.  But it does mean no drastic changes.Unfortunately you are held hostage to the wishes of British Canadianchicken farmers, Indiana counties, etc, etc. in determining what thezones will be. The set of zones may increase due to post-1970 changesin ways that we cannot predict. And the C++20 standard thankfully doesnot include the list of zones in the API.The objections to removal of the pre-1970 data (which affects very fewusers on computers) seem to be about ancillary effects on the numberof zones, and I think the discussion should be about the zone namesthemselves. The TZ database has never had a one name per country atleast policy.Sincerely,Watson Ladd>> Howard>
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