[Python-Dev] Draft PEP for time zone support.

[Paul Moore]

On 12 December 2012 00:58, Nick Coghlan <ncoghlan at gmail.com> wrote:
> I'd prefer a more aggressive name for this like "tzdata_override". My
> rationale is that *nix users need to thoroughly aware that if they install
> this package, they will stop benefiting from the automatic tz database
> updates provided by their OS (especially if they install it into the system
> site packages on a distro that has migrated to Python 3 for system tools).
>
> Such a name would also make it possible to provide *two* packaged databases,
> one checked before the OS data (tzdata_override), and one shipped with
> Python itself that is used only if the OS doesn't provide the timezone
> database (tzdata_fallback). tzdata_fallback would then be updated to the
> latest Olsen database for each maintenance release. Cross-platform
> applications that wanted more reliably up to date timezone data could then
> conditionally depend on tzdata_override for Windows deployments (using the
> environment marker support in metadata 1.2+).

That sounds sensible, EIBTI and all that. It is a lot simpler than
shipping the package and some sort of auto-updater, too.

Paul