On 2026-10-20 at 04:49 -0600, Randolf Richardson, Postmaster via mailop wrote: > While I appreciate that, most people don't understand this > nuance, > and very few have shown any interest in learning about it. In > retrrospect, IANA has made a poor choice of naming because (...)
Actually, these names predate for decades the timezone database being managed by IANA. Remember that this used to be named the "Olson database", too. > I think the smartest thing that IANA can do to avoid this > controversy is to bring back the "Canada/Pacific" and other > "Canada/" > timezones, because I it will probably be easier than convincing many > Americans to change "America" to "Americas." All these timezones are named <Continent>/<Main city> with quite clear rules on when to split the timezones and not. Which is good, since this may cause a lot of political arguing. The unfortunate part here is that America is understood a USA, and not the continent as intended. Names like 'Canada/Pacific' still exist there, but as an alias to 'America/Vancouver'. Just like 'Eire' is an alias to 'Europe/Dublin', or 'Libya' to 'Africa/Tripoli'. > Anyway, I'm talking with my MP about getting our timezones > named so as to create further distance from the "51st State" > threats. Note that the name that a country uses internally to name its own timezones is irrelevant for the IANA timezone database. - The country often only cares about the current datetime, with things like "this city moved from West timezone to East timezone", while the db records how time evolved in that city. Not just the current one - Consistency with the above rules, and - Plus, there are (a few) timezones with the same name in different countries that actually mean different times (fun!). Generally, the politicians don't use to do a good job when changing clock rules. _______________________________________________ mailop mailing list -- [email protected] To unsubscribe send an email to [email protected]
