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Bug#815200: marked as done (tzdata: US/Pacific-New timezone is arcane, confusing)

Your message dated Mon, 26 Mar 2018 23:06:28 +0000
with message-id <E1f0bC8-0006kn-Dh@fasolo.debian.org>
and subject line Bug#815200: fixed in tzdata 2018d-1
has caused the Debian Bug report #815200,
regarding tzdata: US/Pacific-New timezone is arcane, confusing
to be marked as done.

This means that you claim that the problem has been dealt with.
If this is not the case it is now your responsibility to reopen the
Bug report if necessary, and/or fix the problem forthwith.

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-- 
815200: https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=815200
Debian Bug Tracking System
Contact owner@bugs.debian.org with problems
--- Begin Message --- 
Package: tzdata
Version: 2016a-1
Severity: wishlist

Hi,

When running "dpkg-reconfigure tzdata" to reconfigure my machine's time
zone, one of the choices presented on the "US" menu is
"Pacific-New". Apparently this is a reference to a proposed time zone
that never became law in the U.S.:

    http://catless.ncl.ac.uk/Risks/13.87.html#subj1

    US presidential election year politics help cause time zone bugs

    Paul Eggert <eggert@twinsun.com>
    Mon, 26 Oct 92 14:47:57 PST

    Several people on the west coast of the US reported that their Unix
    systems failed to switch from daylight savings time to standard time
    yesterday, 25 October 1992.  The reason?  When they originally
    configured their systems, they were asked to choose one of the
    following time zone rules:

        US/Alaska   US/Central  US/Hawaii   US/Pacific
        US/Aleutian US/East-Indiana US/Michigan US/Pacific-New
        US/Arizona  US/Eastern  US/Mountain US/Samoa
        ...

    Some people chose `US/Pacific-New' instead of `US/Pacific'.  After
    all, who wants the old version when you can have the new version?

    Unfortunately, `US/Pacific-New' stands for ``Pacific Presidential
    Election Time'', which was passed by the House in April 1989 but
    never signed into law.  In presidential election years, this rule
    would have delayed the PDT-to-PST switchover until after the
    election, to lessen the effect of broadcast news election
    projections on last-minute west-coast voters.  Thus, US/Pacific-New
    and US/Pacific have always been identical -- until yesterday.

    This problem comes from combining Arthur David Olson's deservedly
    popular time zone software (which you can FTP from elsie.nci.nih.gov
    in pub/tz92b.tar.Z) with some overly terse vendor-supplied
    installation procedures.  No doubt Olson did not use a more
    informative name like `US/Pacific-Presidential-Election' because of
    the 14-character file name length limit in many Unix file systems.
    In view of yesterday's experience, though, it seems unwise to make
    the hypothetical choice available under any name, since it gives
    free rein to Murphy's Law.

Interestingly, US/Pacific and US/Pacific-New appear to now be aliases
for the same underlying time zone:

    edmonds@chase{0}:~$ dpkg -S US/Pacific
    tzdata: /usr/share/zoneinfo/US/Pacific-New
    tzdata: /usr/share/zoneinfo/right/US/Pacific-New
    tzdata: /usr/share/zoneinfo/posix/US/Pacific-New
    tzdata: /usr/share/zoneinfo/posix/US/Pacific
    tzdata: /usr/share/zoneinfo/right/US/Pacific
    tzdata: /usr/share/zoneinfo/US/Pacific

    edmonds@chase{0}:~$ ls -l /usr/share/zoneinfo/{right/,posix/,}US/Pacific*
    lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 18 Jan 29 15:28 /usr/share/zoneinfo/US/Pacific -> ../SystemV/PST8PDT
    lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 18 Jan 29 15:28 /usr/share/zoneinfo/US/Pacific-New -> ../SystemV/PST8PDT
    lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 21 Jan 29 15:28 /usr/share/zoneinfo/posix/US/Pacific -> ../../SystemV/PST8PDT
    lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 21 Jan 29 15:28 /usr/share/zoneinfo/posix/US/Pacific-New -> ../../SystemV/PST8PDT
    lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 18 Jan 29 15:28 /usr/share/zoneinfo/right/US/Pacific -> ../SystemV/PST8PDT
    lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 18 Jan 29 15:28 /usr/share/zoneinfo/right/US/Pacific-New -> ../SystemV/PST8PDT

So the behavior described in 1992 for the "US/Pacific-New" time zone
isn't even replicable any more:

    edmonds@chase{0}:~$ zdump -v /usr/share/zoneinfo/posix/US/Pacific-New | grep 1992
    /usr/share/zoneinfo/posix/US/Pacific-New  Sun Apr  5 09:59:59 1992 UT = Sun Apr  5 01:59:59 1992 PST isdst=0 gmtoff=-28800
    /usr/share/zoneinfo/posix/US/Pacific-New  Sun Apr  5 10:00:00 1992 UT = Sun Apr  5 03:00:00 1992 PDT isdst=1 gmtoff=-25200
    /usr/share/zoneinfo/posix/US/Pacific-New  Sun Oct 25 08:59:59 1992 UT = Sun Oct 25 01:59:59 1992 PDT isdst=1 gmtoff=-25200
    /usr/share/zoneinfo/posix/US/Pacific-New  Sun Oct 25 09:00:00 1992 UT = Sun Oct 25 01:00:00 1992 PST isdst=0 gmtoff=-28800

Probably that's a hack to fix the time on systems where the sysadmin
inadvertently chose the wrong timezone. Maybe US/Pacific-New should be
removed, or at least not displayed in the "dpkg-reconfigure tzdata"
menu?

-- 
Robert Edmonds
edmonds@debian.org

--- End Message ---
--- Begin Message --- 
Source: tzdata
Source-Version: 2018d-1

We believe that the bug you reported is fixed in the latest version of
tzdata, which is due to be installed in the Debian FTP archive.

A summary of the changes between this version and the previous one is
attached.

Thank you for reporting the bug, which will now be closed.  If you
have further comments please address them to 815200@bugs.debian.org,
and the maintainer will reopen the bug report if appropriate.

Debian distribution maintenance software
pp.
Clint Adams <clint@debian.org> (supplier of updated tzdata package)

(This message was generated automatically at their request; if you
believe that there is a problem with it please contact the archive
administrators by mailing ftpmaster@ftp-master.debian.org)


-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA512

Format: 1.8
Date: Mon, 26 Mar 2018 18:23:37 -0400
Source: tzdata
Binary: tzdata
Architecture: source all
Version: 2018d-1
Distribution: unstable
Urgency: medium
Maintainer: GNU Libc Maintainers <debian-glibc@lists.debian.org>
Changed-By: Clint Adams <clint@debian.org>
Description:
 tzdata     - time zone and daylight-saving time data
Closes: 815200
Changes:
 tzdata (2018d-1) unstable; urgency=medium
 .
   [ Aurelien Jarno ]
   * debian/control: Update Vcs-Git and Vcs-Browser fields following the move
     to Salsa.
 .
   [ Clint Adams ]
   * New upstream version.
   * Remove Pacific-New as a choice.  closes: #815200.
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--- End Message ---
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