Time zone database shut down (The Daily Parker)

The Daily Parker reports on the shut down of the Olson time zone database (used by most Unix-like systems) due to a copyright infringement lawsuit. Evidently, an astrology company bought the rights to The American Atlas, which was used (and credited) for some of the historical time zone information, and now the company is suing for infringement of something that looks an awful lot like facts (which are not supposed to be copyrightable). "What's even stupider about this lawsuit is that comments in the database encourage people to buy the book. So even if Astrolabe owns the copyright to the facts about time zone rules—a troubling proposition—their republication in the Olson database increases the likelihood that they'll make money off it." (Thanks to Dirkjan Ochtman for the heads up.)

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