How will OE handle the US timezone change?

How will OE handle the US timezone change?

[Rod Whitby]

Not that I really care (not living in the US), but people using distros
built from OE are getting concerned about how the new US DST timezone
thing is going to be handled.

Are there any OE developers in the US who know enough and care enough to
 fix it properly?  Our someone else who is gracious enough to help our
US friends out of their timezone mess?

At the moment, there seems to be a timezones package which downloads
binary files from some OPIE site.  I've heard that timezone data is
endian specific, so it seems that some better solution might be required.

-- Rod

Re: How will OE handle the US timezone change?

[Michael 'Mickey' Lauer]

Rod Whitby wrote:
> Not that I really care (not living in the US), but people using distros
> built from OE are getting concerned about how the new US DST timezone
> thing is going to be handled.

I must have missed that news -- what did they do?

> Are there any OE developers in the US who know enough and care enough to
>  fix it properly?  Our someone else who is gracious enough to help our
> US friends out of their timezone mess?

> At the moment, there seems to be a timezones package which downloads
> binary files from some OPIE site.  I've heard that timezone data is
> endian specific, so it seems that some better solution might be required.


The opie timezones package was just an interim solutions, however as a
lot of interim solutions, it outdid the expectations :D

timezone data is generated by glibc. If someone manages to package
the timezones from glibc in a fine granular way, then we can dump the
opie timezones package.

Regards,

:M:
-- 
Michael 'Mickey' Lauer | IT-Freelancer | http://www.vanille-media.de

Re: How will OE handle the US timezone change?

[Cliff Brake]

On 2/5/07, Rod Whitby <rod@whitby.id.au> wrote:
> Not that I really care (not living in the US), but people using distros
> built from OE are getting concerned about how the new US DST timezone
> thing is going to be handled.
>
> Are there any OE developers in the US who know enough and care enough to
>  fix it properly?  Our someone else who is gracious enough to help our
> US friends out of their timezone mess?

Yes, I'll start looking into it as I have several customers that need
this fixed.

Thanks,
Cliff


-- 
=======================
Cliff Brake
http://bec-systems.com

Re: How will OE handle the US timezone change?

[Mike (mwester)]

> Are there any OE developers in the US who know enough and care enough to
>  fix it properly?  Our someone else who is gracious enough to help our
> US friends out of their timezone mess?

Yes, there is.  I raised the issue originally, based on questions from
concerned users.

I've made a proposal on the NSLU2 lists.  I understand it annoyed koen.  As
the proposal suggested, constructive feedback on what should be done to
improve it would be appreciated, and gratefully accepted.  (Being annoyed is
an indication of concern, but I'm having difficulty converting that to
constructive feedback :)

The proposal was to fix the problem specifically for OpenSlug (hence posted
originally only on the NSLU2 lists), as I cannot pretend to know about the
needs of every other potential OE user.  And given the nature of timezones
themselves (regional with a smattering of politics), it seems doubtful to me
that there is any solution that is not also regional, and smelling of
politics.

> At the moment, there seems to be a timezones package which downloads
> binary files from some OPIE site.  I've heard that timezone data is
> endian specific, so it seems that some better solution might be required.

The existing package downloads very old data.  It is packaged in a somewhat
arbitrary manner.  It is also binary, thus cannot be updated by just
pointing to updated source data.

Going into a small bit of specifics, the proposal suggests that we create a
new package (as the newer timezone data does not match the structure of the
existing package).  The obvious critisism of this approach doesn't need to
be mentioned.  The hard part is to figure out what would be a reasonable way
to split the package, given the structure.  Take a look at
/usr/share/zoneinfo on any recent Linux system for a quick glimpse -- there
are very clear and obvious ways to split the data for some items ("africa",
"northamerica", "europe", etc), but what to do with all the links?

Empirical testing indicates that endian issues are not present, but if
anyone has more certain knowlege one way or another, that would be good
information to have.  It would change how the data needs to be generated for
the package.

Thanks,
Mike (mwester)

Re: How will OE handle the US timezone change?

[Mike (mwester)]

> Rod Whitby wrote:
> > Not that I really care (not living in the US), but people using distros
> > built from OE are getting concerned about how the new US DST timezone
> > thing is going to be handled.
>
> I must have missed that news -- what did they do?

The energy act of 2005 changed DST to begin earlier and end later.  This
change is not limited to the US.  I expect the impact to Bermuda to be
minimal -- I think timezones fade to insignificance when sitting on the
beach in the sunshine, with a cold drink in hand.  However, the change also
affects Canada.

Based on a cursory look, the existing timezone-* packages are significantly
out-of-date, so this particular DST change is only the most recent of the
ones it probably missed.  Perhaps the lack of feedback on this is an
indication that the timezone packages are not in widespread use.

Mike (mwester)

Re: How will OE handle the US timezone change?

[Matt Reimer]

On 2/5/07, Rod Whitby <rod@whitby.id.au> wrote:
> Not that I really care (not living in the US), but people using distros
> built from OE are getting concerned about how the new US DST timezone
> thing is going to be handled.
>
> Are there any OE developers in the US who know enough and care enough to
>  fix it properly?  Our someone else who is gracious enough to help our
> US friends out of their timezone mess?
>
> At the moment, there seems to be a timezones package which downloads
> binary files from some OPIE site.  I've heard that timezone data is
> endian specific, so it seems that some better solution might be required.

Todd Blumer (tnb on IRC) has been working on getting the timezones
packages up. Check with him.

Matt

Re: How will OE handle the US timezone change?

[Rod Whitby]

Matt Reimer wrote:
> Todd Blumer (tnb on IRC) has been working on getting the timezones
> packages up. Check with him.

Would it be possible for Todd, Mike and Cliff (who are also working on
this problem) to get together and work on this together?

Perhaps by posting the requirements for the solution first (including
addressing how to handle the granularity issue, and the issue of
migrating from the old timezone packages) and leaving the implementation
details until after the requirements are agreed upon?

-- Rod