RE: OWL-Time ISSUE-127 TimeZone model

Simon,


1.       If we keep the Time Zone examples, we need to change all ‘GMT’ and ‘Greenwich Mean Time’ to ‘UTC’ and ‘Universal Coordinated Time’.


2.       I also suggest we place a marker for the useful and semmingly persistent resources at IETF https://www.ietf.org/timezones/data/ and also IANA http://www.iana.org/time-zones ? what do you think?


Chris


From: Little, Chris
Sent: Wednesday, December 21, 2016 2:56 PM
To: 'Simon.Cox@csiro.au'; public-sdw-wg@w3.org; 'Phil Archer'
Subject: RE: OWL-Time ISSUE-127 TimeZone model

Simon, Phila,

Do we need to ask the worldclock people whether we can quote them? I know it is polite anyway.

Is there a W3C policy about it?

I notice that their API does not specify UoM and they use both decimal hours and seconds for the same purpose, though I understand why.

Are you suggesting that we edit Appendix B with the informative examples, or abolish it and put the examples in the body of the document?

Chris

From: Simon.Cox@csiro.au<mailto:Simon.Cox@csiro.au> [mailto:Simon.Cox@csiro.au]
Sent: Wednesday, December 21, 2016 4:20 AM
To: public-sdw-wg@w3.org<mailto:public-sdw-wg@w3.org>
Subject: OWL-Time ISSUE-127 TimeZone model

I’ve created a specific issue for discussion of the time-zone model issue raised by Chris as (local) Issue-12.

I am inclined to go along with Chris’s proposal to remove Appendix B which described the TimeZone ontology, since it is limited in scope and incomplete. However, some of the examples need links to timezone definitions, so we need to point them somewhere. Options:


(a)   Fix the timezone ontology – lots of work, no expertise

(b)   Keep it, but mark it ‘informative’ – but we already know it is slightly broken

(c)    Find an alternative.

An excellent, well maintained, source of timezone definitions is the list here: https://www.timeanddate.com/time/zones/


Individual timezones appear to have stable URIs, like https://www.timeanddate.com/time/zones/aedt

Furthermore,

1.      these guys have been maintaining this resource pretty well for quite a few years now,

2.      the site URL at least has been stable over at least one change in ownership (it changed from a hobby to a commercial site)

3.      after all, it’s just a collation from sources of varying jurisdictional status and solidity[*] as there is no global governance arrangement
I doubt we could find a better source. There are IATA codes – see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Air_Transport_Association_code#IATA_timezone_codes but (a) these are not the same as the customary codes (EST, AEST etc) and (b) I can’t find any corresponding linked resources.
So, for the time being, I propose to use the timeanddate URIs in the examples.

Note that TimeAndDate also provides an API to get descriptions like

      <timezone offset="+11:00">
        <zoneabb>AEDT</zoneabb>
        <zonename>Australian Eastern Daylight Time</zonename>
        <zoneoffset>36000</zoneoffset>
        <zonedst>3600</zonedst>
        <zonetotaloffset>39600</zonetotaloffset>
      </timezone>

which appears to show that their data model is less sophisticated than their HTML pages (which are very nice)!

[*] some customary timezones actually have zero legal status – e.g. https://www.timeanddate.com/time/zones/acwst


Simon J D Cox
Research Scientist
Environmental Informatics
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