[tz] Replacing the TZ Coordinator

[Paul Eggert]

On 9/22/21 11:06 AM, Stephen Colebourne via tz wrote:
> Paul, as duly endorsed TZ Coordinator, are you willing to accept the
> proposed action to allow time and space to come up with a proper
> solution?

Unfortunately, the equity issue has broadened and is now visible outside 
our little community, and I really and sincerely doubt whether it'd be a 
good idea for us to do nothing about it now. We need to establish that 
we are fixing the problem and are not deferring action to a never-never 
land of arcane bureaucracy, and we need to do so in terms that will be 
clear to outsiders.

So, instead of the 2021a1-vs-2021b compromise I suggested earlier (which 
turns out to have important compatibility issues just with the name 
"2021a1"!) I now plan to compromise along the lines I suggested a dozen 
hours ago, here:

https://mm.icann.org/pipermail/tz/2021-September/030686.html

I.e., the idea is to revert most (but not all) of the objected-to 
changes. In particular, this will revert the changes to Europe/Oslo and 
Europe/Stockholm, which have drawn the most objections. The idea is to 
take the first step now, and to take more steps in future releases 
(which should not be distant-future releases, as we need to continue to 
make and exhibit a good-faith effort to fix the problem). This will let 
us generate just one version, 2021b.

Although your followup 
<https://mm.icann.org/pipermail/tz/2021-September/030689.html> didn't 
agree with the proposed compromise, it didn't reject it in quite the 
strong terms that I saw in earlier emails. And indeed, the proposed 
compromise is far closer to what you suggested than to what I suggested, 
as it replaces only 9 Zones with Links instead of 30-odd Zones. So it's 
a reasonable way forward, even if both of us dislike the compromise.

Because this proposal is a reversion, it should be safe even though it's 
a last-minute change.