Subject: [bug#31484] [PATCH] gnu: icu4c: Patch zoneinfo directory.

From: [email-masked] (Ludovic Courtès)
Date: Tue, 22 May 2018 14:06:53 +0200

Heya,

Leo Famulari <[email-masked]> skribis:

> It indicates two general problems, IMO:
>
> 1) the lack of build farm capacity
> 2) it should be possible to update the time zone database without
> rebuilding packages (the packages should use TZDIR)

I think tzdata is an example where dynamic composition (i.e., TZDIR) is
what we should use.  That way we can update tzdata as frequently as we
want.

For the case where TZDIR is unset, programs can still use
tzdata-for-tests, which could be slightly outdated, but I consider it a
“degraded” mode and I think it’s fine.

> I wonder what is done in Nixpkgs...

It may be that the majority of their users don’t live in the regions
affected by recent timezone changes…

Ludo’.