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<p>Yeah, so far I don't see any justification in here for creating
this short term fork — a reorganization of the historical data
does not exactly seem to be something that is important in the
short term and the cost will be quite high.<br>
<br>
I'll also note that the proposed version 2021a1 is likely going to
cause problems all by itself. In the <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://data.iana.org/time-zones/tz-link.html#download">Downloading
the tz database</a> section of tz-link it says:<br>
<br>
<blockquote type="cite">Since 1996, each version has been a
four-digit year followed by
lower-case letter (<samp>a</samp> through <samp>z</samp>,
then <samp>za</samp> through <samp>zz</samp>, then <samp>zza</samp>
through <samp>zzz</samp>, and so on).
Since version 2016h, each release has contained a text file
named
"<samp>version</samp>" whose first (and currently only) line is
the version.</blockquote>
<br>
This is not exactly a guarantee, but 2021a1 does violate that
nomenclature, which will likely break scripts that rely on it (I
have scripts that actively assert that the version numbering
follows this convention, for example).<br>
<br>
I have personally been in the camp of giving Paul the strong
benefit of the doubt on many of these concerns, but I do think it
would buy a lot of good will to simply cut a release for 2021a +
Samoan changes and call that 2021b and forestall releasing the
controversial changes until resolution is reached (ideally with
lots of notice, so people have time to update their assumptions
about the stability of historical data as distributed).<br>
<br>
Best,<br>
Paul<br>
</p>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 9/22/21 15:06, Howard Hinnant via tz
wrote:<br>
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<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:A5CAEE9A-A686-4C63-8B5F-6C47F3FA0BED@gmail.com">
<pre class="moz-quote-pre" wrap="">On Sep 22, 2021, at 2:30 PM, Paul Eggert via tz <a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="mailto:tz@iana.org"><tz@iana.org></a> wrote:
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<pre class="moz-quote-pre" wrap="">
Although this is effectively a fork in the short term,
</pre>
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<pre class="moz-quote-pre" wrap="">
A fork is a big cost. What is the benefit that outweighs this cost?
Howard
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