Subject: Re: New Mail List - [email-masked]

From: Paul Eggert <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 3 Feb 2000 18:31:30 -0800 (PST)

From: Doug Royer [SMTP:[email-masked]]
   Sent: Thursday, February 03, 2000 6:47 PM

   The [email-masked] list is for public discussion
   of timezone information.

How does that mailing list's charter differ from that of
[email-masked], which is a list for public discussion of time
zone information that has been in use since 1986?

I visited www.software.com, but found no discussion of the new list.
How does one join, or view its message archive?

   IANA as part of the IETF is looking into administrating the names
   of world wide time zones.

How and why will this administration differ from the process already
in place for the existing time zone database?

	   1) Port the government database and 'zic' (Zone Information
	      Compiler) to other OS's and have it also provide the
	      data in VTIMEZONE format. Most UNIX's use the government
	      database format and the zic compiler (man zic).

On 1998-07-16 Antoine Leca <[email-masked]> wrote that he was
implementing (1); you might ask him how far he got.

	   2) Convert the government database into VTIMEZONE records for IANA
	      to administer.

Isn't conversion automatic?  If so, why would two databases need to be
administered separately?  One database should be generated
automatically from the other.

   And if someone want to volunteer - make a converter to go from
   VTIMEZONE format to zic input format to keep the databases in sync.

Why would this be necessary, if conversion is automatic?

FYI, here is a brief summary of existing sources for time zone data:
http://www.twinsun.com/tz/tz-link.htm

And here is a copy of the tz mailing list archive:
ftp://elsie.nci.nih.gov/pub/tzarchive.gz

---

From: Alex LIVINGSTON <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 4 Feb 2000 14:50:54 +1100

>   Sent: Thursday, February 03, 2000 6:47 PM
[snip]
>   of world wide time zones.

What are IANA and the IETF?

[snip]
>	      Compiler) to other OSes and have it also provide the
>	      data in VTIMEZONE format. Most UNIXes use the government

Which other OSes? What is the VTIMEZONE format?

>implementing (1); you might ask him how far he got.

To which OSes was Antoine porting them and was he also providing the data
in VTIMEZONE format?

Alex

_______________
Alex LIVINGSTON
IT, Australian Graduate School of Management (AGSM), Sydney
Fax: +61 2 9931-9349 / Phone: +61 2 9931-9264 / Time: UTC + 10 or 11 h.

It's the 2000th year, 200th decade, 20th century, and 2nd millennium -
the last year of the last decade of the last century of the millennium.
(But it's no longer 1999, the 1990s, the 1900s, or the 1000s.)

Years since epoch (1-1-1 at 00:00:00) at midday today (Feb. 4): 1999.09238382

Provisional iweaq date: 2000-1g3 (Year-QuarterWeekDay) - day before
mid-quarter day, close to northern "rise of spring" (southern "rise of
fall"?)

---

From: "G. Del Merritt" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 03 Feb 2000 23:34:07 -0500

>How does one join, or view its message archive?

Send a message to [email-masked] and include the 
word "subscribe" in the message body.

Sorry if I've spoiled a right of passage.  The "-request" suffix is pretty 
standard fare.

--
G. Del Merritt                                [email-masked]
     http://www.intranets.com - Get Everyone on the Same Page(sm)