Definition of IANA Registry for Timezone Names
draft-leiba-tzregistry-00

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Abstract

VCards need a stable, well defined list of timezone names, so that users can create VCards that refer to timezones. There is no common list of such names, and other standards need timezone names also. This document creates an IANA registry of timezone names, and initially populates the list.

Initial version

• Define timezone registry.
• Defer initial population with Olsen database until we like the basic document.

Table of Contents

1.  Introduction

2.  IANA Considerations
2.1.  New registry for timezone names
2.2.  Initial population of timezone-names registry

3.  Security Considerations

4.  References
4.1.  Normative References
4.2.  Informative References

§  Author's Address
§  Intellectual Property and Copyright Statements

1.  Introduction

VCards need a stable, well defined list of timezone names, so that users can create VCards that refer to timezones. There is no common list of such names, and other standards need timezone names also. This document creates an IANA registry of timezone names, and initially populates the list.

This document defines only the names, leaving the definition of the timezone rules ("normal offset is UTC+2", "switch to summer time on the third Sunday in March", etc) out of scope. The registry contains an optional URI for each defined timezone, and it's possible for that URI to point to a place where such rule definitions can be obtained.

A timezone name has the following ABNF [ABNF] (Crocker, D., Ed. and P. Overell, “Augmented BNF for Syntax Specifications: ABNF,” October 2005.) syntax:

tzname = ALPHA *127(ALPHA / DIGIT)

; may have mixed case for readability
; interpreted case-insensitively

2.  IANA Considerations

2.1.  New registry for timezone names

IANA is asked to create a new registry for timezone names. This registry contains only IETF-controlled timezone names. New names are registered using the "Specification Required" policy [IANA] (Narten, T. and H. Alvestrand, “Guidelines for Writing an IANA Considerations Section in RFCs,” October 1998.). [anchor1] (It won't be "Specification Required". What should it be?)

This defines the template for a new registry for timezone names, to be created as http://www.iana.org/assignments/timezone-names. There are no initial entries for this registry.

To: iana@iana.org
Subject: Registration of new timezone name
Timezone name: [a short US-ASCII string with no internal meaning]
Description: [a human-readable US-ASCII string, in English, that describes the meaning of this timezone (such as, "the time zone in New York City")]
Information URI: [A URI that points to more information about this timezone. Specify "none" if there is no appropriate URI.]

2.2.  Initial population of timezone-names registry

The following are the initial names to be registered in the timezone-names registry, to be entered in http://www.iana.org/assignments/timezone-names.

[anchor2] (We'll be filling this in from the Olsen DB...)

Timezone name: ??
Description: a time zone.
Information URI: none

3.  Security Considerations

This document defines an IANA registry. There are no security considerations.

4.  References

4.1. Normative References

4.2. Informative References

Author's Address

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