On 2026-10-06 12:19, Robert Bastian wrote:
The changes linked above effectively ignore TZDB's decision to model these
changes as new standard times.
Thanks for explaining. Some more comments plus a couple of questions.
As I understand it, after November 1 neither CLDR nor TZDB will use the
English-language abbreviations suggested by the respective regional
governments. For the new timekeeping we have:
0 1 2 3
-07 MST PDT PCT America/Vancouver
-06 CST MDT ABT America/Edmonton
-06 CST MDT ??? America/Inuvik
-05 EST CDT MBT America/Winnipeg
where column 0 is the UT offset, column 1 is the abbreviation that TZDB
will use, column 2 is what CLDR will use, and column 3 is what the
respective governments suggest (NWT does not suggest so I listed "???".)
This disagreement is unfortunate but I don't see a simple solution other
than maybe just going with column 0 in TZDB for now. Although columns 1
and 2 are both compatible with a lot of existing software and standards
(e.g., Internet RFC 5322), neither column is likely to match what people
will say; and although column 3 attempts to avoid that confusion it is
at the expense of compatibility and it regionalizes abbreviations in a
way that will likely have significant problems.
I don't see anything in bleeding-edge CLDR mentioning "ABT" or "Alberta
Time", or similarly for the other government-suggested abbreviations or
names, so it looks like CLDR is also holding off on column 3 for now.
Will this month's new CLDR stick with the name "Mountain Daylight Time"
for Alberta's timekeeping, and will it allow "Mountain Time" as a
generic name for this new timekeeping even though Alberta doesn't have
alternatives for summer and winter? And what will CLDR do for "Mountain
Standard Time" in Alberta - will that string be forbidden in Alberta, or
never generated? Or am I misreading the tables again?
Also, it seems the phrase "Pacific Time" is uniquely problematic here,
as it exactly matches the legal name for -07 in BC whereas CLDR uses it
as a generic name for both -08 and -07. We won't have this problem with
"Manitoba Time" and "Alberta Time", though we will have other problems.
