[tz] Issues with pre-1970 information in TZDB

[Robert Elz]

    Date:        Thu, 23 Sep 2021 17:31:14 -0700
    From:        Paul Eggert via tz <tz at iana.org>
    Message-ID:  <56559a18-6bab-d340-67ca-80892dfcf55f at cs.ucla.edu>

  | The alternate version that has only the Samoa fix 
  | should give you a clear path forward in the short term.

Only if it is tz-latest on the IANA distribution site.


>From a different message:
  | If the rule were "at least one Zone  per political unit that has the legal
  | power to set its own rules", we'd  have dozens more Zones than we do now,
  | Zones that would cause more  trouble than they'd cure. 

What trouble would that be?    I fail to see it.

And from an earlier message:

  | Another reason  - more important to my mind - is that sticking with 2021a's
  | blueprint would mean that its equity problems would remain present in
  | whoever uses  that blueprint. 

Whatever issues exist would remain for a while yes, but assuming they really
exist, they've been there for some time now - it is not crucial that any fix
be applied this week.

Furtherm the solution you're adopting is the wrong one, you cannot answer
people who claim to be disadvantaged by disadvantaging others - "sorry, we
did it to you, but it really isn't just you, we're screwing this other group
as well..."   Not a rational answer.   The correct fix is to be inclusive.

To take an example from a different area which I suspect applies to you.

I assume your department does not discriminate against women applicants,
right?   (Substitute any other sometimes disadvantaged group for "women" in
this paragraph if you like).   What would happen if one year there were
simply no women applicants?   Do you go out and kidnap a few, and force them
to enrol, in the name of equity?   I doubt it.   I know, the solution,
you refuse to enrol any non-women so that yu can show that you're not
discriminating against women.   That's fair and equitable, right?   Perhaps
but also insane.

Here we don't even need to go add Angola, Niger, etc - unless someone from
there supplies data and requests that it be included.   Hypothetical
discrimination is not discrimination, just noise.   If there is a request
to add a zone for one of those, then simply add it.   All equitable and fair,
and very very simple.

And finally, the most recent suggestion:

  | OK, how about if I scale back the current round of link-merging, so that
  | it's on the scale of what we've done in previous releases?

That would depend upon what "scale back" means.   If it means "none of"
that would be just fine.   If it means "all currently proposed, except Oslo"
then no, that will not do at all.

Just release 2021a + Samoa (plus Jordan if you feel that's ready, that one
is far less urgent) and everything else can wait.   There can be another
release in a month, or even a week or two, if we can find something we
agree upon.

kre