[tz] Wrong symlinks with BACKWARD=backward PACKRATDATA=backzone

[Paul Eggert]

On 3/6/24 13:29, Benjamin Drung via tz wrote:
> the Debian/Ubuntu package uses BACKWARD=backward PACKRATDATA=backzone.

Why is that? In other words, what bug report prompted the use of 
PACKRATDATA? That may help figure out a reasonable fix, if any is needed.


> The resulting tzdata.zi has the timezone Africa/Asmara, but
> Africa/Asmera points to Africa/Nairobi instead of the existing
> Africa/Asmara

'backzone' contains out-of-scope and often-wrong data dating back to an 
older way of doing things. The 'backzone' data entries are not 
maintained and are not necessarily compatible with the in-scope data in 
'africa', 'asia', etc.

There is tension between being bug-for-bug compatible with the older 
tzdata, and being compatible with in-scope data and/or with other 
platforms. The 'backzone' file is designed for the former case; this 
minimizes maintenance effort, since it's relatively easy to just keep 
the 'backzone' data the way it was. I wouldn't want to take on the 
maintenance burden for the latter case, as that'd be quite a mess.