Debian 13, Postgres, and the US/* time zones

Hang on a second, "(...) in 2023. US/* was moved to tzdata-legacy (...)"

US/* was moved to 'backward' (the file for backward compatibility) in the tz database in 1993(!) and as such was essentially marked as deprecated long enough. https://data.iana.org/time-zones/tzdb/backward

You're telling me you didn't notice ? It was on display in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying ‘Beware of the Leopard.

> You're telling me you didn't notice ? It was...

In a large fraction of cases in the FOSS world, it comes across that the developers really do want to communicate this sort of thing, but there's no clarity on where or how they should do so. See for example various deprecations in Python packaging tools (and standards).

Then you get the reverse. I just upgraded to macOS Sonoma (yes I'm always one major version behind with Apple stuff...), and I was annoyed as heck when I had to click through "Look what's new in Calendar!", "Look what's new in Reminders!", "Look what's new in StripClubs!"... I need to use my software right now, I will not read this. Then I will forget it ever popped up, and will not read it in the future either.

In this case, they did communicate it, and the aforegiven Vogon reference is a mischaracterization. The naming convention is in the current IANA doco and Eggert copy.

* https://data.iana.org/time-zones/tz-link.html#tzdb

* https://web.cs.ucla.edu/~eggert/tz/tz-link.htm#tzdb

Paul Eggert explained the continent/ocean plus largest city naming convention on a WWW page almost a quarter of a century ago. The WWW page was so well publicized that you can find its URL baked into at least four of the O'Reilly animal-cover books from the early 2000s.

* https://web.archive.org/web/20011023074744/http://www.twinsu...

It was explained on Usenet and on mailing lists prior to that.

You know, the tzdata people are quite haughty. They claim to store all that change, accurately, and yet here we are.

An example of this falsehood? Well, in the 70s my father convinced most of my hometown, at least the portions between Main St and Wharf, that DST was absurd.

For almost an entire year, this was observed.

Do you think they kept record in tzdata? I tried to convince them, but no! I still have some dateplanners my father had printed up, and even a picture of the sign that was out on the road (to alert visitors!).

But no!

Do not trust the tzdata people. As you can see, they are not so accurate.

Once upon a time I stumbled upon a small book of maps showing the time zones in Indiana each year in the mid-20th century. It was fascinating to see how various towns and cities would jump back and forth between Eastern and Central year to year, with little regard for the surrounding rural areas.

I frequently kick myself for losing track of that book.

Not only did I not notice, I have never known that country prefixes were a thing, having to deal with tzdata since 1999. I wonder if that timezone was typed in manually? I doubt Postgres 15 file contained it to begin with.

Why are time-zones even prefixed by continent? Country-prefixed time-zones make more sense because they're defined politically.

Cities may find themselves in other countries easier than on other continents.

I disagree. Country borders can move. I have not heard of a city moving between continents however.

There's a vast difference between Apple showing you all it's useless new AI integrations and developers telling system administrators what they need to know.

And I think Debian sent those notes also via its mail system (exim + mail). I don’t usually care for my workstation, but I do check it for my servers.

You are just not providing sufficient proof. Think Wikipedia style proof. The fact that DST is or isn't observed should be published in a real book. A random dude printing some date planners or putting up a sign to be photographed isn't enough proof.

In addition to what others have said, there are several examples where people disagree about which country a city is “rightfully” in.

Nobody can really find fault with Asia/Jerusalem, whereas either Israel/Jerusalem or Palestine/Jerusalem would be controversial.

NEWS.Debian entries are displayed by apt-listchanges in a pager by default when running apt upgrade, as well as sent by email.

It seems like they're being pragmatic, not haughty:

> "The tz database is not authoritative, and it surely has errors. [...] Errors in the tz database arise from many sources: Sometimes, different people in the same city maintain clocks that differ significantly. [...] Even if the time is specified by law, locations sometimes deliberately flout the law. [...] Any attempt to pass the tz database off as the definition of time should be unacceptable to anybody who cares about the facts."

https://data.iana.org/time-zones/theory.html#accuracy

If you'd be willing to scan/post those I'd love to see them!

Istanbul does so all the time. Or never. #schrödinger

> I have not heard of a city moving between continents however.

Continents are conventional are there are multiple competing conventions. The same place absolutely can and will move continents if you decide to swap out one of those conventions for another.

Or consider Cyprus-traditional geography assigns it to Asia-it may be an island, but that’s the nearest continental landmass-and so IANA tzdata lists it as Asia/Nicosia-but since it (or at least the internationally recognised part of it) is in the EU, a lot of people view it as part of Europe. And the standard name for its time zone is “Eastern European Time”