[tz] Lebanon DST change internally disputed

[Rany Hany]

I've simply set the timezone to Etc/GMT+2 in the meantime. It should 
work fine in the interim. The only thing I worry about is the following 
scenario:

  * User sets their timezone to Asia/Beirut on old tzinfo which thinks
    its DST time
  * Disables NTP and manually sets the time without DST offset
  * All other calendars/etc is messed up and off by one hour

This is made worse by the fact that Alfa and Touch (only telecom 
providers) recommended their customers to just manually set the time 
instead of adjusting the UTC offset... All around terrible situation 
compounded by poor advise from these companies :(

On 3/26/23 01:12, Jad Baz wrote:
> Indeed
> Suppose the decision is not reversed though and the IANA db remains on 
> 2023b
> Vendors will pickup that version and will rollout to their devices 
> incrementally
>
> The issue is that the rollout will not be instantaneous but rather 
> incremental across different vendors, systems and devices over several 
> days perhaps
>
> In the interim period, I'm wondering how transactions, meeting times 
> and any sort of dealing with anyone outside Lebanon will take place 
> when, say, one party is on 2023b while the other is still on 2022g
>
> On Sat, Mar 25, 2023, 23:59 Rany Hany via tz <tz at iana.org> wrote:
>
>     My gut feeling is that this change won't last long and will be
>     repealed soon. The public frustration with this change is just too
>     great, especially seeing that it was done on such short notice and
>     with non-existent planning for the ramifications/methods for
>     carrying it out (they didn't even contact IANA!)
>
>     At any rate it does appear that the consensus in the country is
>     that DST is postponed and so I don't see a need to update the
>     timezone data... and besides what is the protocol in these cases,
>     a new timezone for every sect?
>
>     Perhaps it would be the first instance of timezones on the basis
>     of sect than region (or have the Tibetans beaten us to the punch?)
>
>     On 3/25/23 23:45, Tim Parenti via tz wrote:
>>
>>     On Sat, 25 Mar 2023 at 16:46, Jad Baz via tz <tz at iana.org> wrote:
>>
>>         Lebanon is going through many internal disputes surrounding
>>         the latest decision to delay DST
>>
>>
>>     Thanks for the heads-up.  This situation is unfortunate and is
>>     just one of many reasons we advise governments to disseminate
>>     these changes far in advance.  Thankfully, this sort of division
>>     appears rare in recent memory, but it has the potential to be
>>     incredibly disruptive when it does occur, and there's not really
>>     anything we can do about that.
>>
>>         All of these concerns are important to bring to light in view
>>         of IANA's procedures for updating timezone data:
>>         If you would ask today "what the average person on the street
>>         would think the time actually is", it's not at all clear what
>>         the answer would be
>>
>>
>>     Yes, it appears many in Lebanon are planning to set their clocks
>>     forward in about 15 minutes while others plan to wait a few more
>>     weeks.  Hopefully those differences can be reconciled, and the
>>     situation can clear itself up somewhat over the next few days. 
>>     Do keep us posted.
>>
>>     In the meantime we have, by coincidence of timing, two tz
>>     versions which differ only by the Lebanese government's recent
>>     announcement.  Though it's certainly an imperfect solution, those
>>     hoping to observe the government's announced delay of DST could
>>     use tz version 2023b, while those choosing to ignore the delay
>>     could use 2023a (or even 2022g if they don't care about handling
>>     timestamps in Egypt, Greenland, Morocco, and Palestine.)  Of
>>     course, such a split approach would present some pretty major
>>     interoperability challenges.
>>
>>     --
>>     Tim Parenti
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://mm.icann.org/pipermail/tz/attachments/20230326/a0c8d94d/attachment.html>