packaging Time::OlsonTZ::Data

[gregor herrmann]

On Mon, 19 Mar 2012 18:32:40 -0600, Iain Arnell wrote:

> On Mon, Mar 19, 2012 at 2:15 PM, Zefram <zefram at fysh.org> wrote:
> > Hi, I'd like to establish what's going to happen about packaging my CPAN
> > module Time::OlsonTZ::Data for OS distros.  I'm writing to (as far as I
> > can tell) the current Debian and Fedora maintainers of DateTime::TimeZone
> > packages, and I'm CCing the relevant perl.org mailing list.  

Thanks for the heads-up and the good news, and sorry for the late
reply.

> > We're now
> > getting close to replacing the current DateTime::TimeZone with a
> > rewrite that will use Time::OlsonTZ::Data as its source of Olson-derived
> > timezone data.
> I only hope that "close" means summer or winter - not the busy periods.

Debian's feeze for the next release is planned for June, so if we
want to get the shiny new things into it, we should be quick.
 
> > Iain Arnell raised an issue about T:OTZ:D not
> > coming in a true source form.  I've got a new
> > version of the wrapper system that I think resolves this.
> > <http://www.fysh.org/~zefram/tmp/Time-OlsonTZ-Data-0.20120201.tar.gz> is
> > a test version of the module distribution, which bundles (the important
> > parts of) the Olson database source, and the automation to build the
> > tzfiles, as well as bundling the prebuilt tzfiles.  

I just took a short look at the prebuild script, and this looks
promising.

> Definitely wouldn't be a problem for Fedora to ditch
> the binary tzfiles and rebuild. But your final paragraph is even more
> enticing.

Same here, especially the last part.
I'd like to see the perl tzfiles built from the tzdata source package
completely, to avoid duplicate work, especially with stable updates.
 
> > In Debian, T:OTZ:D ought to be handled through the
> > volatile-data mechanism.  Is that OK?  

'volatile' is now called 'stable-updates', but yes, it should go
their. And since the tzdata maintainers already upload new tzdata
(and -java) packages there it would be good if they could easily
built the perl tzfiles too.

> > Somewhat interacting with the above, you have the option to apply the
> > T:OTZ:D automation to a new version of the Olson database independently
> > of my releases.  Iain Arnell suggested extending the existing tzdata
> > package to build a matching Time/OlsonTZ/Data.pm this way, not needing
> > a separate package for the module.  You'd also have it point at your
> > existing tzfiles in /usr/share/zoneinfo, rather than having a separate
> > copy.  That's quite feasible with the new form of the module distribution.
> Bingo! I know you'd prefer that T:OTZ:D contains the canonical
> upstream data, but having it as part of the system-wide tzdata package
> makes things simpler and more consistent for distros where tzdata is
> generally kept up to date 

Exactly!


Cheers,
gregor
 
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