I reallly do not understand what the issue is.....

[Ben Scott]

On 3/8/07, Jason Stephenson <jason at sigio.com> wrote:
> I manually updated my servers at work by writing a textual zoneinfo file ...

  It gets better.

  There actually *is* a timezone editor tool, available for
more-or-less all versions of Windows.  All it really does is write
some registry entries.  You can turn those into a registry
import/export file, if you like.  Whether you or your organization
have the knowledge needed to deploy the changes to a large fleet of
servers is another questions entirely, of course, but that's a
universal IT problem.

  No, what really sucks diseased donkey dick is Microsoft Exchange.

  First of all, Microsoft didn't use the Windows timezone tables when
they wrote Exchange.  (That's right -- Microsoft doesn't even follow
their *own* standards.)  The Exchange people crafted their own
timezone tables, and embedded them in the program code.  So the only
way to fix Exchange is with a software patch.

  Next, Exchange 2000 is in the "Extended support phase" -- which
apparently should be read as "Extortion support phase".  So, to make
Exchange work right, you need to pay $4000 to get the fix.  For a
timezone table.  That shouldn't even have been needed in the first
place (because the OS provides timezone tables).

  Next, simply updating the code isn't enough.  Events occurring
during the DST difference windows, which were entered into the system
before the fixes were applied, will have the wrong times.  (The
database uses UTC internally, but people generally use their local
timezone, and the pre-patch timezone tables would have used the wrong
UTC offsets during the difference windows.)

  So you have to run this "rebasing" tool which will go through and
fix-up the times for events in the difference windows.  The rebasing
tool is single-threaded, requires Outlook 2003 (only), and cannot be
run on the Exchange server.  Large organizations end up needing a
fleet of workstations running the rebasing tool against their servers.

  The basing tool has had several bugs and updates.  It needs special
permissions.  Oh, and it has to guess as to what timezones the user
meant, and if the times were already fixed-up or not.

  Tell me again how Microsoft has lower TCO?

> Don't those people run a real operating system?

  I don't think I've ever seen a better real-world case for FOSS.  If
Exchange was FOSS, then:

  (1) People could patch the code themselves.
  (2) People could find and fix the bugs in the rebasing tool themselves.
  (3) Third-parties could implement better rebasing tools.
  (4) Everyone could have had more time to prepare, by not waiting on
Microsoft to get around to fixing things.

  UGH!

-- Ben