On Wed, 15 Apr 1998, Greg Evans wrote:

> On 4/15/98 4:21 AM, havenerk was rumored to have said:
> 
> >I, too, thought all the timezone info was a little bit drawn out at
> >install.  Of course, I'm a meteorologist who is quite used to dealing with
> >only one time zone--GMT.  Any way to perform the install to GMT, then
> >allow users to diddle with the locality issues later?  Besides, my mac is
> >a rotten timekeeper in any timezone!
> 
> Regarding all this timezone stuff, call me crazy, call me stupid, but 
> what is the big deal with time?
> 
> why don't we just make it so everyone has to learn GMT and then make it 
> so that the GMT can be adjusted in 1 minute intervals? <g>

Well, I'd tend to agree, except that mail programs and such give info like
GMT bias, and the ability to set zones allows things like ntpd to
synchronize clocks even across time zones (since the system just asks the
time server for GMT, and then calculates the local time based on the local
time zone.

Here's a novel concept... how about trashing the binary files for
timezones, and creating a human-readable file containing the time change
specs so that people can configure them according to their particular
situation....


Something like:

gmtbias=-360                     # non-DST offset from GMT in minutes
dst=yes                          # has notion of DST
dststart: month=4 week=1 day=0   # first Sunday of April, for instance
dstend: week=43 day=4            # Thursday of the 43rd week



or for more complex cases.....



dststartbase: month=aequ day>=aequ,0    # first Sunday after or equal to
                                        # autumnal equinox
dststartoffset: week=3                  # three week offset.

dstendbase: month=aequ day>aequ, 0      # first Sunday greater than...
dstendoffset: week=6 day=3              # make that the 6th Wednesday.


Options like...

month
week (of month if specified, else of year)
day (day of week if week specified, else of month)

plus options for phases of the moon, vequ/aequ for equinoxes, sun spot
cycles, migration patterns of sea otters... whatever.  Then ship with
sample files showing the options.

Alternately, how about just dividing the timezone files according to area,
and only installing the area that is relevant....  This could be useful
for other reasons, too, as you could put other region-specific things in
there, such as language enhancements, keyboard maps, etc.


Thoughts?
David

-----BEGIN GEEK CODE BLOCK-----
Version: 3.1
GCS/CC/FA/H/L/MC/M/MU/PA/TW d-@ s:>- a-- C++++>$ UBLAS*++++>$
P+?>$ L+++>$ !E--- W+++>$ N++(+++)>+++$ !o? K-? !w--- !O
M++>$ !V-- PS+>$ !PE- Y+>$ PGP+>$ t+++>$ 5+>++++$ !X- !R tv+>$
b++>$ !DI !D- G++(+++)>$ e>++++ h--! r--- !y-
------END GEEK CODE BLOCK------