[tz] Preparing to fork tzdb

[Paul Eggert]

On 9/22/21 2:53 AM, Almaz Mingaleev wrote:
> What equity, diversity or inclusion issues were in 2021a?

Locations in countries like Norway and Sweden got special treatment by 
being Zones, whereas locations in countries like Angola and Ethiopia 
were only Links.

> How does the patch solve them or make the situation better?

It replaces Zones with Links when Links suffice. That way, Norway etc. 
are treated like Angola etc.

> Is there a roadmap?

The recent patches implement the last part of a long-term process that 
replaced Zones with Links when Links suffice. The process started in 
2013. I worked gradually; I lacked time to do it all at once.

The job is done now. There's no reason to make further changes like this.

> There were multiple requests about Kiev -> Kyiv rename.
The recent patches are orthogonal to the Kiev -> Kyiv rename, because 
that city has a unique timezone history since 1970 and so gets a Zone 
under the guidelines, independently of how the Zone is spelled.

> Won't it cause even more requests of that kind?

I doubt whether the change will affect the number of name-change 
requests. The patches did not affect names; they merely changed some 
Zones to Links.

> And the patch
> can be interpreted as prioritising some time zones over the others.

Only in the sense that the currently-prioritized timezones are those 
that differ since 1970, which is a timekeeping issue that the tzdb 
guidelines say is our priority. This is in contrast to 2021a, where some 
timezones were prioritized for reasons unrelated to timekeeping.

> Sorry if it was already answered, I couldn't find answers to these questions
> in archives.

This stuff is scattered all over the place, unfortunately. It would be 
helpful if I (or someone else) had the time to write it up. I hope this 
email is enough in the meantime.

PS. I apologize for not answering your email earlier, as well as not 
replying to everyone else's email. Unfortunately I'm swamped with email 
now, much of it not tzdb-related. It will take time to consider all the 
suggestions made recently, but because of Samoa we really need to get a 
new release out soon and so will have to make do with what we have, somehow.