>> you could just as well argue that we *don't* need someone to track the
>> time zone changes and import them on a regular basis because no one
>> you know cares if cyprus/nicosia is in europe or asia.
>
>except that who i know isn't relevant.

but whether cyprus is in europe or asia is, and was debated somewhat
on the tz list recently.  as a result, new time zone data files were
issued, and cyprus is now in two continents.  i guess if we have no
users there, we could have avoided that import, yes?

>it's an OS's responsibility -- or reasonably assumed to be an OS's
>responsibility -- to provide accurate time-zone information for
>userland programs, if it has userland programs and provides any time
>zone information at all.  This is especially true for a general
>purpose OS for which the circumstances of deployment are not known.
>
>It's not an OS's responsibility to tell you what kind of jewelry to
>buy, unless it's fairly well specialized in that direction.  8-)

no, but it is my operating system's duty to make sure that i enjoy
myself.  and it's not telling me what to buy...just providing me with
a short set of preestablished guidelines that i now don't have to go
looking for.

>> do airports and zipcodes disappear?
>
>airports do change, i dunno about disappear.

change, yes.  oh, and they do "disappear"...when they are renamed.
hmm...what was idlewild's three letter code?  it would not have been
jfk.  of course...that particular change predates unix.

>zipcodes don't disappear that I know of, but the names of the places
>that they describe _do_ change.  (The area where I live recently had
>its postal name changed, and apparently keeping the old name valid was
>_not_ the default and had to be fought for.)

so...naught shall endure save mutability.  but at what cost?  it's
small, imho.

-- 
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