[tz] Moving more zones to 'backzone'

[Clive D.W. Feather]

Florian Weimer via tz said:
> I'm not sure if the above is an appropriate characterization, but I want
> to point out that switching much of Europe to Europe/Berlin will leaves
> us ill-equipped to deal with future time zone fragmentation after
> mandatory DST has been abolished in Europe, and different countries make
> different choices.

I disagree. In fact, I think it's scaremongering.

Ignoring Ireland, which is already a special case, and overseas territories,
which aren't affected anyway, there's only three current timezones in the EU
(in terms of current rules, ignoring all history ever). If, for example
Sweden decides to stay on winter time and the rest of the EU decide to stay
on +2, then we split Europe/Stockholm back off Europe/Berlin *and do nothing
else*. This is exactly the same as if we suddenly discovered that Sweden had
changed time a week later than everyone else in 1984. And is no more work
than if we'd discovered that Berwick-on-Tweed hadn't observed BST in 1976.

As far as I can see, the *most* that the EU change will do is require us to
split each of these merged zones into two and to newly split
Europe/Belgrade and Europe/Prague. And that's only if countries make the
worst-possible choices and the Commission doesn't override them.

-- 
Clive D.W. Feather          | If you lie to the compiler,
Email: clive at davros.org     | it will get its revenge.
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