Subject: Re: [calsify] [Tzdist] Time Zone Distribution Protocol

From: Martin Burnicki <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 01 Sep 2014 09:42:27 +0200

Hi Cyrus,

Cyrus Daboo wrote:
> Hi Martin,
>
> --On August 29, 2014 at 3:59:21 PM +0200 Martin Burnicki
> <[email-masked]> wrote:
>
>>> 2. My proposal was for DNS to return *all* the timezone file when
>>> receiving some sort of specialized query (which I hadn't determined),
>>> rather than trying to return data for just one timezone.  Timezone data
>>> needs to be usable "offline" and pulling the entire file is, in my
>>> opinion, the best way to have an offline copy.
>>
>> I absolutely agree. +1
>
> I disagree. There are obvious use cases where only one or two time zones
> might be needed. e.g., "internet of things" devices - my home thermostat
> only needs one time zone - namely the one where my house is. Such
> devices may have a limited memory capacity, and even though time zone
> data isn't huge, it would still be a waste to store it all when only one
> is being used.

The original message said

"to return *all* the timezone file when receiving some sort of 
specialized query"

so my understanding was that there should be one command which retrieves 
*all* current TZ data, but of course there should be different commands 
to query only selected data.

So embedded devices could just pull the data they need to keep a single 
TZ up to date, but full-featured computers could pull all TZ 
information, so when users want to select a different time zone then all 
available zones are up to date.

Martin
-- 
Martin Burnicki

Senior Software Engineer

MEINBERG Funkuhren GmbH & Co. KG
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