<<On Sat, 3 Oct 2026 15:19:23 -0400, James Bellaire via tz <[email protected]> said:
> On 10/3/2026 3:03 PM, Doug Ewell via tz wrote: >> The “delay” perceived by such public would be between the initial policy >> announcement on September 17 and the release of 2026e on September 30. > Most of the public has no clue tzdata exists. They rely on the > downstream programmers to keep application updates available. They don't > see the process behind the curtain. This seems as good a spot in this discussion to make this point: "Most of the public" includes nearly all politicians and government officials. Most people's mental model, as seen in politicians' messaging the past few months, is that if your clock is wrong, you don't install a software update, you "simply" change the clock. It's convenient if the clock "changes itself" for you, but if it doesn't, you do the same thing as your grandparents did. Hence all the communication has been "stop doing something you have always had to do" (i.e., "stop changing the clocks") rather than "change the time zone the clock thinks it's in". Only programmers and scientists have any notion of UTC offsets, let alone the sort of rules computers use to know when and how to change those offsets (i.e., what we do here). So the politicians don't think in terms of software vendors distributing updates, they think of *constituents no longer needing to reset the clock on the microwave oven*. -GAWollman
