Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Time Zone Database Has New Home After Lawsuit

Posted by samzenpus on from the let-us-handle-this dept.

networkBoy writes "ICANN has taken stewardship of the time zone database after its original operators were sued for copyright infringement by an astrology software company, saying they will 'deal with any legal matters as they arise'. From the article: 'Without this database and others like it, computers would display Greenwich Mean Time, or the time in London when it isn't on summer time. People would have to manually calculate local time when they schedule meetings or book flights.'"

2 of 238 comments (clear)

  1. Slightly off-topic but... by GeneralEmergency · · Score: 4, Interesting

    .

    When are we going to start burning all the Astrologists as Witches?

    This lawsuit would seem to be ample provocation.

    .

    --
    "A microprocessor... is a terrible thing to waste." --
    GeneralEmergency
  2. Re:Wikipedia by Carnildo · · Score: 4, Interesting

    The database is more than just "what time is it in New York City?". It's also useful for answering questions like "On June 15, 1988 at 13:00 UTC, what time was showing on the clocks in Riyadh?".

    (That particular question is why the zoneinfo entry for Saudi Arabia is almost ten times the size of any other entry.)

    --
    "They redundantly repeated themselves over and over again incessantly without end ad infinitum" -- ibid.