Changes/AllowRemovalOfTzdata

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Allow Removal of tzdata

This is a proposed Change for Fedora Linux.
This document represents a proposed Change. As part of the Changes process, proposals are publicly announced in order to receive community feedback. This proposal will only be implemented if approved by the Fedora Engineering Steering Committee.

Summary

Allow the removal of tzdata especially on containers in order to minimize size.

Owner

• Name: Patsy Griffin (Franklin)
• Email: patsy@redhat.com

Current status

• Targeted release: Fedora Linux 39
• Last updated: 2023-06-06
• [<will be assigned by the Wrangler> devel thread]
• FESCo issue: <will be assigned by the Wrangler>
• Tracker bug: <will be assigned by the Wrangler>
• Release notes tracker: <will be assigned by the Wrangler>

Detailed Description

This change will allow the removal of tzdata. When tzdata is removed, the system will default to UTC. In order to reduce overhead, many container installations now remove the data associated with tzdata but cannot fuly remove the package due to dependencies by other packages. This results in confusion regarding the expected timezone info.

In order for this to work, we need packages that use tzdata at run time to switch from Require'ing tzdata to Recommend'ing tzdata. These packages should also gracefully handle instances where tzdata has been resolved. For example, this would require recognizing that tzdata is not present and providing an appropriate error, such as recommending that the user install tzdata.

Feedback

In June of 2021, we proposed creating a new tzdata sub-package that would only provide the UTC timezone. As part of the discussion around this proposal, it was recommended that we completely remove tzdata. We appreciated this input and welcome additional feedback.

Benefit to Fedora

This change will allow tzdata to be removed from containers without leaving inconsistent package remnants.

Scope

• Proposal owners: No changes are needed to tzdata.

• Other developers: Other packages will need to change their spec files to Recommend: tzdata rather than Require: tzdata. They will also need to provide appropriate errors/responses when tzdata is not available at run time.

• Release engineering: No changes needed.

#Releng issue number

• Policies and guidelines: N/A (not needed for this Change)

• Trademark approval: N/A (not needed for this Change)

• Alignment with Community Initiatives:

Contingency Plan

• Contingency mechanism: (What to do? Who will do it?) N/A (not a System Wide Change)
• Contingency deadline: N/A (not a System Wide Change)
• Blocks release? N/A (not a System Wide Change), Yes/No

Documentation

N/A (not a System Wide Change)