Comment 5 for bug 1268585

On 5 November 2014 19:54, Ubuntu-QC-1 <email address hidden> wrote:
> I contacted Paul Eggert the TZ maintainer and he answered yestarday:
>
> "$ TZ=America/Montreal date; TZ=America/Toronto date; date -u
> Wed Nov 5 03:15:48 EST 2014
> Wed Nov 5 03:15:48 EST 2014
> Wed Nov 5 08:15:48 UTC 2014
>
> So I don't see the problem in the tz database itself. Perhaps there is
> an Ubuntu packaging issue, but that's something you'll have to take up
> with the Ubuntu folks."
>
> So the problem is NOT coming from TZ/upstream. Dimitri please reinstate
> Montreal as it used to, the implemented change/deletion just as no
> reason to be.
>

Given that both are the same time, what's the functional problem with
selecting Toronto?
Other than ideological / political?

When one is offline we use zone.tab to provide a list of unique timezones.
Upstream does change zone.tab frequently.

In 2013h release America/Montreal was removed from the zone.tab file upstream
http://bazaar.launchpad.net/~ubuntu-branches/ubuntu/vivid/tzdata/vivid/revision/103

It is still a valid timezone, but it's not a unique one. Notice how
the timezone was renamed upstream as well:

"America/Toronto Eastern Time - Ontario - most locations"
became
"America/Toronto Eastern Time - Ontario & Quebec - most locations"

Thus in minimal environment (no internet connection established to
geoip & timezone ubuntu providers) we only use zone.tab, which since
2013 lists "America/Toronto Eastern Time - Ontario & Quebec - most
locations" as the timezone one should use for Montreal.

If you wish to dispute this, please request tzdata upstream to put
Montreal back into zone.tab. (but I daubt that will happen, since it's
redundant data)

--
Regards,

Dimitri.