Andrew Brown <atatat@atatdot.net> writes:
> you could just as well argue that we *don't* need someone to track the
> time zone changes and import them on a regular basis because no one
> you know cares if cyprus/nicosia is in europe or asia.

except that who i know isn't relevant.

it's an OS's responsibility -- or reasonably assumed to be an OS's
responsibility -- to provide accurate time-zone information for
userland programs, if it has userland programs and provides any time
zone information at all.  This is especially true for a general
purpose OS for which the circumstances of deployment are not known.

It's not an OS's responsibility to tell you what kind of jewelry to
buy, unless it's fairly well specialized in that direction.  8-)


> do airports and zipcodes disappear?

airports do change, i dunno about disappear.

zipcodes don't disappear that I know of, but the names of the places
that they describe _do_ change.  (The area where I live recently had
its postal name changed, and apparently keeping the old name valid was
_not_ the default and had to be fought for.)



cgd