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Colebourne: Time zone database rebooted
On his blog, Stephen Colebourne reports that the timezone database is available again at a new location [FTP]. This is in response to the lawsuit that shut down the Olson time zone database. "I think that all this energy once again demonstrates the value of open source communities and their resilience to difficulties when the code/data really matters to a wide cross-section of people. Thanks to everyone involved in [providing] that energy and spreading news of the attack.
[...]
However, none of us must forget Arthur David Olson and Paul Eggert, who still face the threat of a direct and personal lawsuit having given so much to the open community for zero cost and zero reward. I look forward to hearing better news for them personally." More information can also be found in a post by Robert Elz who has been spearheading the effort to find a new home for the database.
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Colebourne: Time zone database rebooted Posted Oct 14, 2011 17:06 UTC (Fri) by JoeBuck (subscriber, #2330) [Link] The American legal case will almost certainly be tossed out in any case, because facts can't be copyrighted under American law. Unfortunately I have to say "almost certainly" because too many idiots have been appointed to the American judiciary in recent years, and under the American system it can be expensive and time-consuming to defend yourself against a frivolous and ridiculous lawsuit.
Colebourne: Time zone database rebooted Posted Oct 14, 2011 22:23 UTC (Fri) by gerdesj (subscriber, #5446) [Link]
Even if a court found against him, I would hope that damages set would be calculated as proportional to the financial "benefit" that he has accrued over the years.
That should be enough for him to retire on!
Cheers
Astrolabe Response Posted Oct 15, 2011 16:20 UTC (Sat) by nedu (guest, #50951) [Link] The Daily Parker blog has posted a public statement by Astrolabe (Fri 14 Oct 2011):
Note that the Daily Parker blog has also posted a further reply to Astrolabe's statement in a followup article
Colebourne: Time zone database rebooted Posted Oct 16, 2011 19:58 UTC (Sun) by lyda (subscriber, #7429) [Link]
For those curious about the 25 year evolution of the codebase, I wrote some scripts to build a git or hg repo of the released tarball (and usenet shars and patches). You can find it here
https://github.com/lyda/tz-history-scripts
With it you can answer amusing questions like, what's the oldest line of code in the project - there are several but this is the first that comes up when sorting the files alphabetically:
scheck.c:^15ab47c (Arthur David Olson 1986-03-07 17:02:24 -0500 17) scheck(string, format)
The code and the mailing list track an interesting evolution of a corner of Unix, of Unix itself, of archiving formats and distribution methods.
Kevin
ICANN to Manage Time Zone Database Posted Oct 16, 2011 21:59 UTC (Sun) by nedu (guest, #50951) [Link] ICANN Press Release, Fri 14 Oct 2011: “ICANN to Manage Time Zone Database” [PDF]
Website: IANA - Time Zone Database
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