On Wed 06 Dec 2023 at 12:06:04 (-0500), Pocket wrote: > From the README > > The information in the time zone data files is by no means authoritative; > fixes and enhancements are welcome. Please see the file CONTRIBUTING > for details
Time zones are a civil and legal matter, so non-authoritative would mean that the tz database would not be evidence in a court of law. > I take that as chaos reins supreme and one zone is no better or worst > that the other(s) > > IE there is no "standard" We all depend on there being a standard to live our daily lives. It's only when you start compiling all the standards that have been and will be used that it starts to resemble "chaos", particularly in some parts of the world. (The US appears to have been one of those areas in the not so distant past.) Fixes and enhancements means that as changes are reported or discovered, the database is corrected. There's a constant trickle of future changes being made by governments. People also discover historical inaccuracies from literature, like old legal documents and newspaper archives. I respect their research. On Wed 06 Dec 2023 at 13:02:45 (-0500), Pocket wrote: > TZ=POSIX;date > Wed Dec 6 18:00:38 POSIX 2023 You've got a choice of writing something like posix/America/New_York or posixrules, though IDK where the last name came from. (I don't think it can be New Jersey on this occasion.) > TZ=America/New_York;date > Wed Dec 6 13:00:21 EST 2023 > > TZ=EST5DST;date > Wed Dec 6 13:01:10 EST 2023 > > What is the problem? Likely none for times present and future, unless Eric Adams should pass a timezone bill. (In the 2010s, several U.S. states considered legislation to move from the Eastern Time Zone to Atlantic Standard Time, allegedly.) But I've already posted an example in this thread where these timezones give different answers: https://lists.debian.org/debian-user/2023/12/msg00329.html Cheers, David.
