[LEAPSECS] Standards of time zones -Brooks Harris

[Steve Allen]

On Tue 2014-01-07T15:56:46 -0800, Brooks Harris hath writ:

> own, and, on the other, oh isn't there please something we could do

> about it?


Nations, provinces, cities, and sub-populations within cities are
sovereign and subject to their politicians and bureaucrats.
This is not a technical problem.

All in all the tz database has consisted of something less than 200
timezones.  That's countable and manageable, mostly.

One price for this is that right now every Mac and iPhone/Pad/Pod in
Jordan is off by an hour because Jordan changed their daylight rules
around the same time as tz changed its layout.

Apple relies on the code from the ICU-project.
ICU relies on CLDR.
CLDR wraps itself around as a reinterpretation of the tz data.

It will be at least a couple more weeks before these layers catch up
with the changes.  Leap seconds are more predictable than time zones.

Speaking of which, based on IERS Bulletin A it looks unlikely that
there will be a June 30 leap, and somewhat likely that there could be
a December 31 leap.  A December 31 leap would be temptingly close to
the impending 2015 ITU-R Radiocommunications Assembly -- close enough
to ponder whether someone might engineer a leap catastrophe in order
to influence the votes of the RA delegates.

--
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