Policy on DST

Mike McGrath mmcgrath at redhat.com
Wed Dec 3 21:38:10 UTC 2008


On Wed, 3 Dec 2008, Paul W. Frields wrote:

> Every once in a while there's a random annoyance that seems worth
> bringing up and documenting for posterity.  Hopefully this is one of
> those times.
>
> In a nutshell: Does Fedora need a minimal policy for shifting the
> schedule of the #fedora-meeting channel to account for DST?
>
> Sticking with UTC sounds simple.  It's tempting to just use the geek
> perspective and say that's the standard, but this standard causes
> actual problems for humans, who govern their lives by local clocks.
> Moving meeting times back and forth in local time during the year
> seems arbitrary, and can create new conflicts that were carefully
> negotiated months before.  That's a barrier, and therefore my and the
> Board's job to assess and remove if possible.
>
> Most of our contributor base observes some sort of DST, so we should
> simply set dates on which the schedule shifts automatically.  We need
> not use USA standards for the date of the shifting.
>

Eh, we inconvenice everyone a bit now but knowing what time to get to in
UTC isn't really that hard.  While it might be easy for us in the states
to say "yeah, lets just $ST it".  Our time change is in a different time
then other countries though they do happen around the same time, usually
less then 2 months apart I think.

It's hard enough to be a contributor when you're not in the US time zones.
Imagine being on the the other side of the planet, having US time change.
Having to adjust on your clock for a meeting.  Then having your local time
change, having to adjust again.  To me its a bigger burden on non-US folk
with questionable payoff.  We're global, UTC is globally recognized.  No
it's not what time we use in our little bubble to ask our spouses what
time we'll be home for dinner but I think Fedora is bigger / more mature
then that.

	-Mike




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