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Timezone Maintainer Retiring

Posted by timothy on from the sunset-clause-means-it's-noon-all-over dept.

linuxwrangler writes "It's used in Java. It's used in nearly every flavor of UNIX/Linux. In PostgreSQL, Oracle and other databases. Several RFCs refer to it. But where does the timezone database come from? I never gave it much thought but would have assumed that it was under the purview of some standards body somewhere. It's not. Since the inception of the database Arthur David Olson has maintained the database, coordinated the mailing list and volunteers and provided a release platform and now he is retiring. IANA is developing a transition strategy. Jon Udell has an interesting literary appreciation of the timezone database."

2 of 198 comments (clear)

  1. Re:bored legislators by vossman77 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Governments of the world have too much time on their hands if they average fiddling with local time zones 20 times per year.

    You are certainly right about the most recent update, "Mercer County, North Dakota, changed from the mountain time zone to the central time zone." But the changes are not always recent changes. Recent ChangeLog from Fedora 14 Updates:

    * Wed Feb 9 2011 Petr Machata - 2011b-1
    - Upstream 2011b:
        - America/North_Dakota/Beulah: Mercer County, North Dakota, changed
            from the mountain time zone to the central time zone
    * Mon Jan 24 2011 Petr Machata - 2011a-1
    - Upstream 2011a:
        - Updates of historical stamps for Hawaii
    * Tue Nov 9 2010 Petr Machata - 2010o-1
    - Upstream 2010o:
        - Fiji will end DST on March 6, 2011, not March 27, 2011
    * Wed Oct 27 2010 Petr Machata - 2010n-1
    - Upstream 2010m:
        - Hong Kong didn't observe DST in 1977
        - In zone.tab, remove obsolete association of Vostok Station with
            South Magnetic Pole; add association with Lake Vostok
    - Upstream 2010n:
        - Change end of DST in Samoa in 2011 from 2011-04-03 0:00 to
            2011-04-03 1:00
    * Mon Aug 16 2010 Petr Machata - 2010l-2
    - Upstream 2010l:
        - Change Cairo's 2010 reversion to DST from the midnight between
            September 8 and 9 to the midnight between September 9 and 10.
        - Change Gaza's 2010 return to standard time to the midnight between
            August 10 and 11.
        - Bahia de Banderas (Mexican state of Nayarit) changed time zone
            UTC-7 to new time zone UTC-6 on April 4, 2010

  2. You know it's an old Sun workstation... by PinchDuck · · Score: 5, Interesting

    under his desk, with a note taped to it that says "DO NOT TURN OFF".

    That time in 1994 when some clod spilled coke on his desk almost brought it down, but TZ Guy was able to dive under his desk with his shirt off to soak up the spill before it started screwing things up...