> 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.
That reminds me of the DNS system in the early 1990s using ".oz" for
Australia's ccTLD, but was later converted to "gold" with the ".au"
ccTLD according ISO's country codes. (Chemistry pun intended.) ;)
> > 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.
That works well when multiple countries on the same contient can
agree on which country's city is the main one. Here in Canada, we
regard "Vancouver, BC, Canada" as the main city, and I've met many
Americans who regard "Vancouver, Washington, USA" as the main city.
> The unfortunate part here is that America is understood a USA, and not
> the continent as intended.
Yeah, and I remember when "Americas" was the distinction, but that
trailing letter "s" seems to have slipped away (most likely due to
gradual linguistic evolution, I suspect).
> 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'.
Well, Vancouver, BC, Canada is remaining on PDT (Pacific Daylight
Time) permanently, while Vancouver, WA, USA is switching from PDT to
PST (Pacific Standard Time) tomorrow.
What's the easiest way to resolve this disparity? For systems that
can directly specify the UTC-0700 offset, it's not a serious problem,
but there are many systems that don't provide access to these offsets
(e.g., to keep things simpler for end-users, or whatever the reason
behind this design choice is).
And then there's the problem with timezone updates, for which I
wholeheartedly agree with you that politicians often mishandle
timezone policy changes -- as for BC (British Columbia), Canada, our
province's Premier introduced this too quickly in my opinion, and
should have put an extra year on it so as to leave time for older
systems, in particular, to get updated (which turns out not to be an
easy feat in a variety instances that I'm aware of, and not just at
government agencies).
> > 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.
Of course, although this wasn't what I was getting at.
> - 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!).
The rules are becoming a problem, so I'm thinking that it's time to
make some improvements to prevent further problems.
> Generally, the politicians don't use to do a good job when changing
> clock rules.
That is correct, and is why this particular mess exists now because
the Premier of British Columbia, Canada, introduced this change
without leaving enough leadtime for industries to implement
adjustments ... and I suspect this won't be the last time this
problem arises since politics tends to include a lot of conflict
before and after various policy changes.
Thanks for your thoughtful responses and insights. :)
--
Postmaster - [email protected]
Randolf Richardson, CNA - [email protected]
Inter-Corporate Computer & Network Services, Inc.
Vancouver, Beautiful British Columbia, Canada
https://www.inter-corporate.com/
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