[rmujica]

Chilean here. Unfortunately our governments have had the bad habit of changing the date DST starts on every two-three years, and that wreaks havoc everywhere in the country. We are kind of used to having a couple of days where we assume everyone will run an hour late because of this.

I just hosted some Peruvian friends this week and were amazed at the kind of power the government wields just by having the ability to change our timezone.

We should be placed on GMT-5, but for a couple of reasons we are on GMT-4 and GMT-3 for DST. Our country is so long that some places on the north have normal length days but on Patagonia days are shorter and they prefer to be on DST all year long (and since some years ago we have a different timezone for that area).

[mike_hock]

So that's why `tzdata` constantly gets updated.

[mtmail]

So far 3 releases in 2022, 5 in 2021, 6 in 2020, 3 in 2019

[matthewsmith2]

as someone who lived in Chile for 3.5 years, I can tell you that all developers who use tzdata = a gift from God.

Calendly always seriously struggled with it, which is really bad given they're a scheduling tool. The amount of meetings I (or my guests) came 1 hour early/late to was... too many.

[lucb1e]

> We are kind of used to having a couple of days where we assume everyone will run an hour late because of this.

Why not just specify times are given in winter time? Invite someone over for "19:00 winter time" rather than just "19:00".

Basically, "amazed at the kind of power the government wields" only works if people follow it. You don't have to put up with that crap (until the dust has settled) when using a time zone people already know: whichever one you've been using for the past ~6 months. (That is to say, this doesn't sound like a religious country type situation where the religious leader declares a new year randomly and you could be seen as not following the holy law by using a more predictable calendar. I vaguely remember something about Israel and Windows 9x just not supporting it until the country decided these things with reasonable lead times.)

[mike-the-mikado]

For comparison, it looks as if Punta Arenas ("the most southerly city in Chile" according to Wikipedia) is about 53 degrees south.

53 degrees north puts you around Nottingham, England (or a little north of Berlin).

[aeyes]

Can you link the article to see why it would say that? Puerto Williams is a lot further south.

But Magallanes doesn't really matter, they don't have DST.

[renewiltord]

To save everyone else lookup trouble since I did: Puerto Williams has about 3k people and the other one has a 125kish.

[kelnos]

> amazed at the kind of power the government wields just by having the ability to change our timezone.

Who else would have that power, though? Every government has the power to set the time within their own borders.

[notatoad]

i think the point isn't that somebody other than the government should have that power, but that the government should have less of that power.

it's perfectly reasonable for goverments to self-limit themselves - for example, pass a law that daylight savings time can't be changed with less than 6 months notice.

[mcv]

But if not the government, then who? And what is their basis for that power? Do you want a separate election for just the people who decide timezones?

I've got to admit, there's an organisation deciding the grammar rules of the Dutch language, and I frequently disagree with them. I wouldn't mind being able to vote for more sensible spelling rules.

[notatoad]

Did you read my comment at all? You’re replying to a comment that quite specifically answers the question in your reply.

[mcv]

You're right, it was probably a too hasty reply from me. It's a good idea for governments to prevent themselves from springing disruptive changes on society.

[userbinator]

Not if everyone uses mean solar time... or just chooses something like GMT.

[jtbayly]

…which they would do via government.

[ruined]

there are areas of the world where the government disagrees with the population on the appropriate timezone, most notably in Xinjiang

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xinjiang_Time

[jtbayly]

The exception that proves the rule.

[utucuro]

A someone who is living in a country where the chosen timezone is 3 hours ahead of solar time, I wish governments had NO authority whatsoever over timezones.

[pedalpete]

Didn't they do the same thing in 2011? But as I recall, it was the Friday before the time change that the announcement came out. I had just recently moved to Chile, and I remember a week of looking at Google to find out what the current time was.

[marcosdumay]

> GMT-3 for DST

So, for a few months every year clocks at Chile are synchronized with the the (almost) most Eastern parts of South America? (Except for some small islands.)

That's insane. Does the Sun sets at 10PM?

[lmarcos]

> That's insane. Does the Sun sets at 10PM?

Umm, in Southern Europe, in summer, you get around 10 days or so where the sun sets at around 10 PM. It's great. I actually enjoy it.

[baskethead]

How do you fix the computers? It must take a long time to roll out changes for the computer code to deal with this

[dotancohen]

On Debian, and most *nixes I believe, the update consists of a single file. All applications read from this file.