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--></style></head><body lang=EN-US link=blue vlink="#954F72" style='word-wrap:break-word'><div class=WordSection1><div><p class=MsoNormal style='line-height:27.0pt'><span style='font-size:14.0pt'>Dear Mr. Robert,<o:p></o:p></span></p><div><pre style='line-height:27.0pt;background:#F8F9FA'><span lang=EN style='font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"inherit",serif;color:#202124'>All your comments will be taken into </span><span style='font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"inherit",serif;color:#202124'>consideration </span><span lang=EN style='font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"inherit",serif;color:#202124'>and sent to </span><span style='font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"inherit",serif;color:#202124'>our </span><span lang=EN style='font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"inherit",serif;color:#202124'> Standards</span><span class=y2iqfc><span lang=EN style='font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"inherit",serif;color:#202124'> Preparation</span></span><span class=y2iqfc><span lang=EN style='font-size:21.0pt;font-family:"inherit",serif;color:#202124'> </span></span><span style='font-size:21.0pt;font-family:"inherit",serif;color:#202124'><o:p></o:p></span></pre></div><p class=MsoNormal style='line-height:27.0pt'><span lang=EN style='font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"inherit",serif;color:#202124'> Committee for review</span><span style='font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"inherit",serif;color:#202124'><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='line-height:27.0pt;background:#F8F9FA'><span style='font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"inherit",serif;color:#202124'>Best Respects,<o:p></o:p></span></p></div><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>Sent from <a href="https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=550986">Mail</a> for Windows</p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><div style='mso-element:para-border-div;border:none;border-top:solid #E1E1E1 1.0pt;padding:3.0pt 0in 0in 0in'><p class=MsoNormal style='border:none;padding:0in'><b>From: </b><a href="mailto:kre@munnari.OZ.AU">Robert Elz</a><br><b>Sent: </b>Wednesday, January 5, 2022 2:03 AM<br><b>To: </b><a href="mailto:heba.hamad@mtit.gov.ps">heba.hamad@mtit.gov.ps</a><br><b>Cc: </b><a href="mailto:tz@iana.org">tz@iana.org</a>; <a href="mailto:rhanoon@mtit.gov.ps">asheed hanoon</a>; <a href="mailto:laith.daraghmeh@mtit.gov.ps">laith.daraghmeh@mtit.gov.ps</a><br><b>Subject: </b>Re: [tz] The State of Palestine has adopted the first part of the specification for its time zone</p></div><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>Most of your concerns have been addressed by others, but I noticed in</p><p class=MsoNormal>reading your document, in section 7, in the two examples on page 8,</p><p class=MsoNormal>you have "Australia Western Standard Time" listed as a standard time</p><p class=MsoNormal>which does not vary within a year (in Example 1) and Australian Central</p><p class=MsoNormal>Standard Time listed as one which does vary within a year (in Example 2).</p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>I'm not exactly sure of the point of those examples, and it is certainly</p><p class=MsoNormal>true that "standard time" can be said to be the local time as specified</p><p class=MsoNormal>at any point during the year. If you meant that Western Australia</p><p class=MsoNormal>does not observe summer time, whereas South Australia does, then that</p><p class=MsoNormal>would be fine - but that does not seem likely as an interpretation, as</p><p class=MsoNormal>you have US Eastern in Example 1, and summer time (daylight saving) is</p><p class=MsoNormal>certainly used there (you even have USEST and USEDT both listed there).</p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>Otherwise, if "standard time" is intended to represent the "natural" offset</p><p class=MsoNormal>from UTC (your definition in section 6 is not clear which of those meanings</p><p class=MsoNormal>is intended) then Australian Central Standard Time varies no more or less</p><p class=MsoNormal>than Australia Western Standard Time does. In summer, in South Australia,</p><p class=MsoNormal>but not the Northern Territory, Australian Central Summer Time applies (which</p><p class=MsoNormal>is the standard time by the earlier definition here). Or more correctly, just</p><p class=MsoNormal>Central Standard Time and Central Summer Time - adding "Australian" as a prefix</p><p class=MsoNormal>isn't really necessary in Australia, and is not in any legislation I have ever</p><p class=MsoNormal>seen. Perhaps because the abbreviation is ACST (or just CST) in both cases</p><p class=MsoNormal>leads to some confusion here - but as Paul Eggert said in his reply, those</p><p class=MsoNormal>abbreviations are largely meaningless (many single timezone areas don't</p><p class=MsoNormal>bother to name the time, as anything other than the time - there is no need</p><p class=MsoNormal>to distinguish it from any other time within the jurisdiction, and with no</p><p class=MsoNormal>name for the time, have no abbreviation either).</p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>I am not sure why Palestine feels the need to label its time - it is unlikely</p><p class=MsoNormal>it will ever span sufficient degrees of longitude to need more than one zone,</p><p class=MsoNormal>and actually separately labeling standard vs summer time tend to cause more</p><p class=MsoNormal>problems than it solves - there should be just "the time", that its offset from</p><p class=MsoNormal>UTC varies during the year isn't relevant to that, 16:00 is 16:00, whether</p><p class=MsoNormal>than happens to be 14:00 UTC or 13:00 UTC (or something different).</p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>Also as Paul hinted, the major factor in achieving:</p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal> Palestine in particular will be able to reduce systems downtime,</p><p class=MsoNormal> human effort and last-minute arrangements that is caused by not</p><p class=MsoNormal> having a unified time zone and also not being able to have a clear</p><p class=MsoNormal> road map for setting daylight saving time as well as providing</p><p class=MsoNormal> certainty that the given information is relevant to the State of</p><p class=MsoNormal> Palestine country of ownership.</p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>(quoted from your Introduction - page 5) is to publish changes long in</p><p class=MsoNormal>advance of when they are to take effect. It can take a very long time</p><p class=MsoNormal>for systems to be updated to new rules (some are designed without that</p><p class=MsoNormal>capacity at all, unfortunately) - authorities that expect a change notified</p><p class=MsoNormal>a month (or less) in advance of its effective date are more or less</p><p class=MsoNormal>guaranteeing disruption, and (perhaps) system down time. Making changes</p><p class=MsoNormal>very infrequently, and always with lots of notice -- Paul suggested a year,</p><p class=MsoNormal>I'd advocate even more than that. This applies not only to a change</p><p class=MsoNormal>to be made, but to a planned change being abandoned as well - that also</p><p class=MsoNormal>needs just as much advance notification as the original change needed,</p><p class=MsoNormal>as updates will otherwise already have started being distributed with</p><p class=MsoNormal>the earlier announced change included - a whole new set of updates is</p><p class=MsoNormal>required to reverse that.</p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>One last comment here - the time zone database *always* reflects the</p><p class=MsoNormal>time that the people of the region actually use in their day to day lives.</p><p class=MsoNormal>What authority sets that time is not our concern, and your ability to</p><p class=MsoNormal>influence what goes into the time zone data base is limited entirely by</p><p class=MsoNormal>your ability to influence the times that the people (railways, busses,</p><p class=MsoNormal>radio and TV, airlines, schools, banks, ...) all use. As long as you set</p><p class=MsoNormal>those times, the times you set (whether reported to us by you, or someone</p><p class=MsoNormal>else) will be what the time zone data base contains. If it turns out that</p><p class=MsoNormal>at some future time someone else is deciding what the local clocks should</p><p class=MsoNormal>indicate, then it will be their time offsets and change dates in the database,</p><p class=MsoNormal>not yours.</p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>None of this is any different for Palestine than anywhere else in the world.</p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>kre</p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p></div></body></html>