Alessandro Selli wrote: > Technically one might scoff at the difference, but we know how much > national denominations matter in many people's minds. Just ask people > in Beijing if they live in Taipei's timezone, if you do not believe > that.
This is not just a matter of national pride. Remember that the Olson database contains historic data for things like daylight savings time, which was handled differently in different countries even if they are technically within the same timezone. For example, in Germany daylight savings time was reintroduced in 1980 but the rules were changed in 1996 to conform to EU standards. In Italy, daylight savings time was started in 1966 already (again with the rule change in 1996). Hence a Unix time stamp from, say, some time in June 1979 would correspond to different (by one hour) wallclock times in Germany and Italy. This will become important, e.g., if Spain, as is (AFAIK) currently being discussed, does decide to move from its current time zone to that of Portugal (1 hour behind) which would make eminent astronomical (as well as practical) sense, given that right now Spain is in the same time zone as Germany (CET, which is based on 15° east longitude – IOW, when the sun is in the south in the town of Görlitz on the German/Polish border, the clock in A Coruña on the Spanish Atlantic coast shows 12 noon, but astronomically speaking it is really 10.25am or so there; actual astronomical noon in summer, including daylight savings time, doesn't happen until after 2.30pm). If we didn't have the historic data in the timezone database, if the Spanish did decide to make the change then suddenly all pre-change timestamps on their Linux file systems would be one hour off. Anselm -- Anselm Lingnau ... Linup Front GmbH ... Linux-, Open-Source- & Netz-Schulungen [email protected], +49(0)6151-9067-103, Fax -299, www.linupfront.de Linup Front GmbH, Postfach 100121, 64201 Darmstadt, Germany Sitz: Weiterstadt (AG Darmstadt, HRB7705), Geschäftsführer: Oliver Michel _______________________________________________ lpi-examdev mailing list [email protected] http://list.lpi.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/lpi-examdev
