[Pkg-isocodes-devel] Timezones?

Mon Jan 21 11:31:17 UTC 2008

Hi,

My vote would be not to merge tzdata translations into iso-codes, but  
perhaps they could
share a PO compendium, etc.

The reason is that iso-codes should not be tied to programs, and  
similarly for tzdata; despite the
(current) lack of iso-codes package in debian-volatile, they should be  
updateable between releases,
when there is a change in the data, and program compatability should  
not be affected.

If the timezone translations are stored in the iso-codes package, then  
we would need to update the
iso-codes package whenever either the iso-codes or timezones data are  
updated.

BTW, the Zone/City division tzdata is, to my knowledge, not arbitrary:  
not all cities are listed. but
ones for which there were significant time zone differences in the past.

e.g I live in Galway, Ireland. Ireland and the UK share the same  
timezone now,
even though it gets called e.g. "British Summer Time" in the summer  
and "Irish Summer Time" in Ireland,
they are in fact changed at the same time. If you look at tzselect,  
etc. The time zones are listed as
Europe/Dublin and Europe/London.  This is (to my knowledge) NOT for  
simple political reasons of different
countries: for a while when timezones were originally created, Dublin  
and London did not share the same
timezone.  As an astronomer, if I get a dataset, such as comet  
observations in Galway at the turn of the (19th) century,
then  I can use the Europe/Dublin tz to record them, knowing that  
"Dublin Time" prevailed at that time, even
when it was several minutes different from London time. This (among  
other reasons) is why several cities are often
used for the same tz; it is for historical rather than random  
arbitrary reasons.

- Alastair

On 21 Jan 2008, at 11:08, Clytie Siddall wrote:

> Thanks very much for your helpful and enthusiastic answers. :)
>
> On 21/01/2008, at 9:20 PM, Aurelien Jarno wrote:
>
>> On Sun, Jan 20, 2008 at 11:20:01AM +0100, Christian Perrier wrote:
>>> (if answering, please keep CC and put "X-PTS-Approved: yes" in
>>> headers
>>> so that tzdata at packages.debian.org gets the mail)
>>>
>>> Quoting Clytie Siddall (clytie at riverland.net.au):
>>>> Hi guys :)
>>>>
>>>> I'm in the middle of one of my running efforts to get developers to
>>>> use iso-codes as a plugin/library for their software, so they won't
>>>> have long lists of language names, country names, currency names
>>>> etc.
>>>> in their programs which we have to translate over and over again,
>>>> and
>>>> which they invariably fail to keep accurate or current.
>>>>
>>>> In this case, it's Evolution (GNOME).
>>>>
>>>> While paging through the huge Evolution translation file, I note
>>>> that,
>>>> in addition to a lo-o-ng list of language names, and an equally  
>>>> long
>>>> list of time/date data they could get from the locale, Evo lists
>>>> timezones. e.g.
>>>>
>>>> #.
>>>> #.* These are the timezone names from the Olson timezone data.
>>>> #.* We only place them here so gettext picks them up for
>>>> translation.
>>>> #.* Don't include in any C files.
>>>> #.
>>>> #: ../calendar/zones.h:7
>>>> msgid "Africa/Abidjan"
>>>> msgstr "Châu Phi/Abidjan"
>>>>
>>>> Any chance iso-codes will take on timezones?
>>>
>>>
>>> Could be interesting. But not necessarily the way to go.
>>>
>>> However, that'd require some coordination with fellow people who
>>> (well) maintain such stuff. In Debian, the tzdata package is now  
>>> well
>>> developed and maintained, for instance.
>>>
>>> I don't really know if timezones are normalized in some way. If they
>>> are, it could make sense to imagine moving this to iso-codes (so  
>>> that
>>> it could benefit people outside Debian). But timezones data goes far
>>> beyond simple names: it includes information about the shift wrt UTC
>>> as well as Daylight Savings Time information.
>>>
>>>
>>> If timezones aren't normalized, I think it
>>> would maybe make more sense to keep this in a separate
>>> package/distribution.
>>
>> tzdata now works on a Zone/City basis. I am not sure the iso-codes
>> also
>> define city names.
>>
>> Then I guess it is mainly a question for the translators. We don't
>> mind
>> if the names are translated by hand or using the data from iso-codes
>> as
>> long as we have a .po file to drop in debian/po.
>>
>
> From the translator POV, the great advantages of standardizing these
> lists via iso-codes are:
>
> 1. the original strings are comprehensive, accurate and correctly
> spelt (!)
>
> 2. we only have to translate them once, and maintain that single
> translation
>
> You might be amazed at the number of programs which still have mis-
> spelt, inaccurate and messy lists of language names, country names
> etc. And we have to translate them again, and again, and submit
> detailed bug reports about the inadequacies of the original strings.
>
> So I'm even keener to support iso-codes, including implementing other
> information that needs standardizing. ;)
>
> BTW, even if you haven't listed city names yet, and it would be
> impractible to list _all_ city names, the timezones are based on
> regions and sub-regions, so they are related to iso_3166-2. Perhaps
> the city names could be classified as part of a regional name.
>
> For example, as in:
>
> South Australia/Adelaide
>
> the timezone is the capital city tagged on to the state name.
>
> The above is my timezone (+0930, currently +0130), and it is often
> left out of supposed comprehensive timezone lists. ;)
>
> Thanks for all your good work. :)
>
> from Clytie
>
> Vietnamese Free Software Translation Team
> http://vnoss.net/dokuwiki/doku.php?id=projects:l10n
>
>
>
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Regards,
Alastair

-- 
Alastair McKinstry  , <alastair at sceal.ie>     http://blog.sceal.ie

Anyone who believes exponential growth can go on forever in a finite  
world
is either a madman or an economist - Kenneth Boulter, Economist.