On Sat, 2024-11-23 at 22:34 +0100, Aurelien Jarno wrote: > Package: release.debian.org > Severity: normal > Tags: bookworm > X-Debbugs-Cc: tzd...@packages.debian.org > Control: affects -1 + src:tzdata > User: release.debian....@packages.debian.org > Usertags: pu > > [ Reason ] > tzdata 2024b got released upstream back in September, but there have > many issues when this version reached unstable and there was margin > before the next change is effective (governments are making progress!), > I preferred to delay the release to better understand the issues and > avoid as much as possible breakages in stable. The next change that is > going to be effective will happen on 2024-12-28, and is the leapsecond > file expiration, but NTP servers are known to emit warnings 28 days > before, so starting on 2024-12-01. > > As it will happens before the next point release, this will require the > package to be provided through stable-updates. > > The breakage in unstable were due to three reasons: > - Starting with glibc 2.40, zic defaults to 'slim' while some packages > still use the old format and therefore need the 'fat' version. This > obviously does not apply to stable. > - The System V zones, deprecated upstream, got moved to the > tzdata-legacy package. This is not the case for this stable update, as > the tzdata-legacy has been introduced in trixie. > - The System V zones got deprecated and replaced by symlinks to > geographical zones corresponding to each System V zone. This change is > the reason of many testsuite breakage, including in stable, due to a > change of the timezone abbreviation and behavior difference outside > of the interval of definition (e.g. DST changes in the very distant > pass or future). > > In the past we handled major upstream changes by only backporting > important timezone changes, but we reverted to the upstream version at a > later point as this strategy has many drawbacks: confusion with the > version number among our users, breakage due to testsuites using > different behavior depending on the upstream version number, and missed > changes. > > Instead the strategy here is to use the new upstream version, but with > the problematic part, the System V zones deprecation, reverted.
This is exactly the same approach we take with Ubuntu: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/tzdata/+bug/2079966 I have seen no issue with this approach so far. -- Benjamin Drung Debian & Ubuntu Developer
