[bug#28977] tzdata updates and package rebuilding guidelines

[Ludovic Courtès]

Hi Leo!

Leo Famulari <address@hidden> skribis:

> When splitting tzdata into two packages, one for "real" use and one for
> test suites, I'd hoped it would allow us to update tzdata immediately
> after new versions were released.
>
> But, there are still way more than 300 packages depending on tzdata, so
> it should be updated on a staging branch:
>
> $ guix refresh -l -e '(@@ (gnu packages base) tzdata)'      
> Building the following 335 packages would ensure 635 dependent packages are 
> rebuilt ...
>
> According to NEWS, if we don't update tzdata soon, some time zones will
> first become incorrect in Northern Cyprus in 5 days.
>
> "Northern Cyprus switches from +03 to +02/+03 on 2017-10-29"

Interesting.

> Any advice? Should we do a staging build? Just be late (the old status
> quo)? Something else?

I think we should identify those packages that unduly refer to ‘tzdata’
instead of ‘tzdata-for-tests’ and incrementally fix them.

In the meantime, I think this patch can go to ‘staging’ and/or
‘core-updates’ (which we should try building anytime now!).

How does that sound?

Thank you,
Ludo’.