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Re: Removing locale timezone information
- From: Allan McRae <allan at archlinux dot org>
- To: keld at keldix dot com, Paul Eggert <eggert at cs dot ucla dot edu>
- Cc: Marko Myllynen <myllynen at redhat dot com>, GNU C Library <libc-alpha at sourceware dot org>, libc-locales at sourceware dot org
- Date: Thu, 13 Aug 2015 00:24:11 +1000
- Subject: Re: Removing locale timezone information
- Authentication-results: sourceware.org; auth=none
- References: <556F23C9 dot 3030500 at redhat dot com> <20150603203430 dot GC15814 at www5 dot open-std dot org> <55715DB2 dot 2010500 at redhat dot com> <20150806175226 dot GD28963 at www5 dot open-std dot org> <55C51D35 dot 8060406 at cs dot ucla dot edu> <20150809145027 dot GA5048 at www5 dot open-std dot org> <55C7773F dot 30205 at cs dot ucla dot edu> <20150812140837 dot GA23436 at www5 dot open-std dot org>
On 13/08/15 00:08, keld@keldix.com wrote:
> On Sun, Aug 09, 2015 at 08:52:31AM -0700, Paul Eggert wrote:
>> keld@keldix.com wrote:
>>> So glibc has no way of making quick corrections appear in distros?
>>> I think most other critical software has a path to have eg security fixes
>>> happen very fast in distros.
>>
>> It's typically harder to update glibc than to update time zone data. This
>> is partly a matter of size (glibc's files are an order of magnitude larger
>> than tzdata's), and partly a matter of release engineering (changing tzdata
>> has far fewer security and reliability implications than changing glibc
>> does). We don't want to treat every minor daylight-saving rule change with
>> the same urgency and thoroughness as we treat a serious security bug in
>> glibc. And this is why most (perhaps all) GNU/Linux distributions have
>> decoupled tzdata from glibc.
>
> My impression is that timezone changes are normally announced in due time
> so that they can be included in normal glibc release schedule, which
> I think is about twice a year, but irregulary. I have not been down into
> the data, tho.
I can recall a couple of occasions where there was a very short notice.
e.g. last week, North Korea changed its timezone, effective on the 15th.
Going through the archives of tz-announce [1], shows plenty of short
notice changes.
It seems you should look at actual data before making these assertions.
Allan
[1] http://mm.icann.org/pipermail/tz-announce/