[LEAPSECS] Standards of time zones -Brooks Harris

[Brooks Harris]

On 2014-01-07 03:40 PM, Poul-Henning Kamp wrote:

> In message <52CC8C26.5090608 at edlmax.com>, Brooks Harris writes:

>

>> I fully understand time zone specifications are fractured. My objective

>> is to determine what standards are most relevant currently, that is,

>> what standards may be considered "in force". And where none exist, to

>> state some sort of rules of "common use" or "common practice" without

>> referring to the impossibly large collection of local jurisdictions and

>> laws.

> There is no way to do that, because timezones are purely a matter

> under the jurisdiction of national or in some cases even provincial

> governments, and they are free to do any damn thing they want to them.

Yes. What I'm trying to get at is - "Offset from UTC" seems pretty clear 
- a given "+-xx:xx" gives you a hard-value to work with in the time 
domain. But this doesn't seem to be clearly defined anywhere. I'm 
looking for more than "because everybody does it that way".

Meantime, local jurisdictions choose to honor some locally defined "time 
zone" including politically defined geographic areas. Time and position 
are related but they are not the same. Typically, most elect to follow 
"common use" precedent and choose a reasonable even-hour "offset from 
UTC". (Yes, I know its sometimes referenced to GMT and other details 
like that, and yes, Newfoundland and others are not on the hour.)


> Various governments have repeatedly made sure this fact is not

> overlooked.


I'm not sure I blame the governments quite so directly. As far as I can 
tell both experts and officials are guessing what the "standards" of 
"timezone" might be, so how can they be expected to conform to a 
non-existent ideal? If someone is in charge of deciding the rules and 
parameters of some time zone somewhere, what guidence do they have? And 
the more you research it, the more confusing it becomes.


>> A) "International Date Line", which is probably not standardized

> [...]

>

> It is not.

>

> In only exists as a the result of local governments deciding what

> timezones to use.

>

> Some Pacific Island nation "jumped" timezones for Y2K in order

> to be the first country to "arrive in the new millenia.

>

> The "intenational date line" is simply where you, in broad daylight,

> have a country with one date on one side and another country with

> a different date on the other side.


Yes. But its "roughly" 180 degrees from the "Greenwich meridian", as per 
"International Meridian Conference of 1884" "Final Act III. "That from 
this meridian longitude shall be counted in two directions up to 180 
degrees, east longitude being plus and west longitude minus."

Its common practice that the jump to the designation of the next day 
occurs at this "international date line", wherever the local authorities 
may have chosen to place themselves, for examples UTC-offset +14:00, 
+13:00, and +12:00. This topic, of jumping to the next day, is discussed 
in many letters and common explanations, but I find no official 
statement to that effect, even as a guideline.


>> B) The "International Meridian Conference of 1884" contains significant

>> discussion of the idea "That these standard meridians should continue to

>> be designated as even multiples of fifteen degrees from Greenwich", but

>> there appears to be no explicit resolution of vote on the topic.

> And there were none subsequently.  Strict 15 degree meridians would

> be very impractical, unless national borders were aligned with them.


Well, thats what even-hour UTC-offsets are, aren't they? And in 
jurisdictions with even-hour UTC offsets, that's where they've placed 
themselves in the timescale, right?


>

> Despite significant attempts at map-redrawing in the first half of

> the 19-hundredes, timezones were never a reason for it.

>

> UTC was standardized so that telephone, telegraph and radio operators

> would not have to keep track of local politics all over the world in

> order to operate.


Right. And it almost works. It seems to me it could work better if the 
loose ends of the underlying standards were better taken care of, hence 
my interest in learning the current state of the definition of each of 
these components.


>

> In practice, the "olsen" database is a post-facto recording of

> political whims with respect to timezones.

>

>

Again, "political whims" is really all they've got to go on. Maybe we 
can do better?

-Brooks