On Mar 15, 2022, at 17:34 , Chris Adams <cma@cmadams.net> wrote:
Once upon a time, Dave <dedelman@iname.com> said:
Folks for most systems, this is a change to a single file. Not a really hard thing to accomplish
For lots of up-to-date servers running a current and well-maintained operating system, this will be mostly easy (except that if you maintain hundreds of servers, it's still non-trivial, because even with automation, there's testing involved to make sure all services are properly updated). It's definitely more than "a change to a single file" though.
If that's all that existed, that'd be great. However, there are tons of not up-to-date servers, running unmaintained operating systems. There are tons of embedded systems that never get updates. The last time Congress messed with the time zones and DST, it was a huge PITA, and I'd wager there are way more problem systems now than there were then.
True, but… Last time Congress messed with this, they weren’t making it better (eliminating the unnecessary and pointless timezone changes), they were arbitrarily changing when those changes happened for no legitimate reason other than the desire to appear to be doing something. I know of many systems that do not cope well with the DST/noDST changes, though as you said, mostly not modern ones running up to date software. I do not know of a single system ever built which keeps time at all and could not handle remaining in the same timezone year round without any modifications. The last change required updating the rules for how the change worked and when to trigger it for several timezones. The proposed change (having a single timezone per location and not changing it twice per year) would be much _MUCH_ simpler than the previous one and offers significant advantages, especially to those older systems that don’t handle the change well.
This is a huge waste of time to address, all because some businesses think their hours are nailed for all eternity, and the world must change instead.
This is a trivial change to eliminate an unnecessary complexity that no longer offers any benefit to society and creates significant costs. Owen