This does not trace things back far enough. The root is where IANA has long since segregated out a set of timezone file names into a "backward" collection:
If one traces references, one finds this connected bug on Launchpad. Amusingly to anyone who has ever seen these sweeping timezone database changes over the years, Launchpad marked it as "This bug affects 1 person.".
All of the US/* timezone names, such as US/Pacific here, have been backwards compatibility measures in place for the whole of the 21st century and some of the late 20th. The Olson database in the 1980s (mod.sources v08i085, comp.sources.unix v14i030) used these names. But the naming scheme changed somewhen in the 1990s to a continent/city and ocean/city form and backwards compatibility with the old names has been preserved ever since by the "backward" file.
Hang on a second, "(...) in 2023. US/* was moved to tzdata-legacy (...)"
US/* was moved to 'backward' (the file for backward compatibility) in the tz database in 1993(!) and as such was essentially marked as deprecated long enough.
https://data.iana.org/time-zones/tzdb/backward
You're telling me you didn't notice ? It was on display in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying ‘Beware of the Leopard.
In a large fraction of cases in the FOSS world, it comes across that the developers really do want to communicate this sort of thing, but there's no clarity on where or how they should do so. See for example various deprecations in Python packaging tools (and standards).
Is there a problem with ISO3166 denoted information in general or is there a specific US issue here? I would think ISO code denoted tzdata was a public good in some sense.
This has nothing to do with ISO 3166 at all. The tzdata database is the work of a single person, Arthur Olson, not a committee (or rather it was, from its birth in the 1980s until 2011 when a company decided to sue him for no reason).
And for most of its life it’s been an explicit policy that timezones are named by continent and representative population center, not by country, to avoid entangling it in territorial disputes and improve naming stability for historical data. The US/* (and Canada/*, etc.) names are deprecated and have been since 1995 (?), but apparently people were still using them because the deprecation wasn’t really apparent unless one was especially into reading release notes.
All the legacy time zones were moved out of the default zoneinfo install. It’s not a us-specific issue but the legacy US/ timezones remain in widespread use, and they stop working on Debian 13 ootb (possibly Ubuntu noble as well?).
> Does anyone know why they are still in widespread use?
Because of a lack of things compelling people to change them until it causes a breakage. And then when it does cause a breakage, most people would rather move heaven and earth to complain, research workarounds, etc. rather than just change it. (Institutional structures can also make "just" changing it far harder than that should be.)
Some of this is surely just muscle memory or intertia as well. I remember random config values from when I was trying out linux boxes back in high school that I replicated into files that just don't get touched for decades afterwards.
When was the last time you rebuilt your company's postgres config from scratch?
Debian is known to have made similar monstrously stupid decisions.
For example, they patch OpenSSH source code in a way that makes defaults behave differently than upstream. In the name of backwards compatibility of course.
I assume this will continue until it doesn't anymore, and the only notification you shall receive from the ivory tower is a cryptic one-liner buried in a changelog somewhere.
Russ Allbery left over bureaucracy and systemd. It sounds like it's chocked full of people who want power and an excuse to patch downstream to create a cottage industry of quirks, busywork, and codependency.
I prefer real choice and light patches that try to upstream as much as possible, or workaround upstream obstinacy rather than create incompatible idiosyncrasies.
Pro tip: Use the command
to get a list of all timezones your debian based OS recognises.For your convenience, here is a list for a Debian 13 box with 628 entries:
https://pastes.io/output-of-timedatectl-list-timezones-on-de...
This does not trace things back far enough. The root is where IANA has long since segregated out a set of timezone file names into a "backward" collection:
* https://data.iana.org/time-zones/tzdb/backward
If one traces references, one finds this connected bug on Launchpad. Amusingly to anyone who has ever seen these sweeping timezone database changes over the years, Launchpad marked it as "This bug affects 1 person.".
* https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/tzdata/+bug/200807...
The rules for the "backward" file are here:
* https://data.iana.org/time-zones/theory.html#naming
All of the US/* timezone names, such as US/Pacific here, have been backwards compatibility measures in place for the whole of the 21st century and some of the late 20th. The Olson database in the 1980s (mod.sources v08i085, comp.sources.unix v14i030) used these names. But the naming scheme changed somewhen in the 1990s to a continent/city and ocean/city form and backwards compatibility with the old names has been preserved ever since by the "backward" file.
* https://groups.google.com/g/comp.unix.solaris/c/ON_MPZxVdv0/...
Debian has moved into a non-depended-upon package a backwards compatibility measure that is as old as Debian itself.
> Launchpad marked it as "This bug affects 1 person.".
That just means no one has clicked "affects me too" button yet (after logging in).
Hang on a second, "(...) in 2023. US/* was moved to tzdata-legacy (...)"
US/* was moved to 'backward' (the file for backward compatibility) in the tz database in 1993(!) and as such was essentially marked as deprecated long enough. https://data.iana.org/time-zones/tzdb/backward
You're telling me you didn't notice ? It was on display in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying ‘Beware of the Leopard.
> You're telling me you didn't notice ? It was...
In a large fraction of cases in the FOSS world, it comes across that the developers really do want to communicate this sort of thing, but there's no clarity on where or how they should do so. See for example various deprecations in Python packaging tools (and standards).
I also ran into this using:
- Debian 13
- Interactive Brokers' Trader Workstation
- Racket's `gregor` date and time library
IBKR still sends the old, deprecated US/* timezones. As noted in the article, the solution is to `apt install tzdata-legacy`.
Always run production systems in the Etc/UTC timezone. This eliminates an entire class of problems while only creating minor inconveniences.
I don't get how this is a snag, it's right there in the log.
Is there a problem with ISO3166 denoted information in general or is there a specific US issue here? I would think ISO code denoted tzdata was a public good in some sense.
This has nothing to do with ISO 3166 at all. The tzdata database is the work of a single person, Arthur Olson, not a committee (or rather it was, from its birth in the 1980s until 2011 when a company decided to sue him for no reason).
And for most of its life it’s been an explicit policy that timezones are named by continent and representative population center, not by country, to avoid entangling it in territorial disputes and improve naming stability for historical data. The US/* (and Canada/*, etc.) names are deprecated and have been since 1995 (?), but apparently people were still using them because the deprecation wasn’t really apparent unless one was especially into reading release notes.
Interesting, I hadn't heard about that frivolous lawsuit before: https://www.eff.org/press/releases/eff-wins-protection-time-...
You can see the zones that are deprecated at https://packages.debian.org/sid/all/tzdata-legacy/filelist
All the legacy time zones were moved out of the default zoneinfo install. It’s not a us-specific issue but the legacy US/ timezones remain in widespread use, and they stop working on Debian 13 ootb (possibly Ubuntu noble as well?).
Does anyone know why they are still in widespread use?
Config defaults somewhere still using them? Man page examples? Tutorials using them? Or just force of habit?
> Does anyone know why they are still in widespread use?
Because of a lack of things compelling people to change them until it causes a breakage. And then when it does cause a breakage, most people would rather move heaven and earth to complain, research workarounds, etc. rather than just change it. (Institutional structures can also make "just" changing it far harder than that should be.)
Some of this is surely just muscle memory or intertia as well. I remember random config values from when I was trying out linux boxes back in high school that I replicated into files that just don't get touched for decades afterwards.
When was the last time you rebuilt your company's postgres config from scratch?
Are they in widespread use? They were deprecated in 1995.
I don't see conflict in those statements.
What sort of monster are you by not defaulting to UTC on systems? (⊙＿⊙') /s
Debian is known to have made similar monstrously stupid decisions.
For example, they patch OpenSSH source code in a way that makes defaults behave differently than upstream. In the name of backwards compatibility of course.
I assume this will continue until it doesn't anymore, and the only notification you shall receive from the ivory tower is a cryptic one-liner buried in a changelog somewhere.
Russ Allbery left over bureaucracy and systemd. It sounds like it's chocked full of people who want power and an excuse to patch downstream to create a cottage industry of quirks, busywork, and codependency.
I prefer real choice and light patches that try to upstream as much as possible, or workaround upstream obstinacy rather than create incompatible idiosyncrasies.