Welcome to 2022b:

zic has a new option '-R @N' to output explicit transitions < N.
(Need suggested by Almaz Mingaleev.)

'zic -r @N' no longer outputs bad data when N < first transition.
(Problem introduced in 2021d and reported by Peter Krefting.)

zic now checks its input for NUL bytes and unterminated lines, and
now supports input line lengths up to 2048 (not 512) bytes.

gmtime and related code now use the abbreviation "UTC" not "GMT".
POSIX is being revised to require this.

When tzset and related functions set vestigial static variables
like tzname, they now prefer specified timestamps to unspecified ones.
(Problem reported by Almaz Mingaleev.)

zic no longer complains "can't determine time zone abbreviation to
use just after until time" when a transition to a new standard
time occurs simultanously with the first DST fallback transition.

Welcome to 2017c:

zic and the reference runtime now reject multiple leap seconds
within 28 days of each other, or leap seconds before the Epoch.
As a result, support for double leap seconds, which was
obsolescent and undocumented, has been removed. Double leap
seconds were an error in the C89 standard; they have never existed
in civil timekeeping. (Thanks to Robert Elz and Bradley White for
noticing glitches in the code that uncovered this problem.)

zic now warns about use of the obsolescent and undocumented -y
option, and about use of the obsolescent TYPE field of Rule lines.

zic now allows unambiguous abbreviations like "Sa" and "Su" for
weekdays; formerly it rejected them due to a bug. Conversely, zic
no longer considers non-prefixes to be abbreviations; for example,
it no longer accepts "lF" as an abbreviation for "lastFriday".
Also, zic warns about the undocumented usage with a "last-"
prefix, e.g., "last-Fri".

Similarly, zic now accepts the unambiguous abbreviation "L" for
"Link" in ordinary context and for "Leap" in leap-second context.
Conversely, zic no longer accepts non-prefixes such as "La" as
abbreviations for words like "Leap".

zic no longer accepts leap second lines in ordinary input, or
ordinary lines in leap second input. Formerly, zic sometimes
warned about this undocumented usage and handled it incorrectly.

The new macro HAVE_TZNAME governs whether the tzname external
variable is exported, instead of USG_COMPAT. USG_COMPAT now
governs only the external variables "timezone" and "daylight".
This change is needed because the three variables are not in the
same category: although POSIX requires tzname, it specifies the
other two variables as optional. Also, USG_COMPAT is now 1 or 0:
if not defined, the code attempts to guess it from other macros.

localtime.c and difftime.c no longer require stdio.h, and .c files
other than zic.c no longer require sys/wait.h.

zdump.c no longer assumes snprintf. (Reported by Jonathan Leffler.)

Calculation of time_t extrema works around a bug in GCC 4.8.4
(Reported by Stan Shebs and Joseph Myers.)

zic.c no longer mistranslates formats of line numbers in non-English
locales. (Problem reported by Benno Schulenberg.)

Several minor changes have been made to the code to make it a
bit easier to port to MS-Windows and Solaris. (Thanks to Kees
Dekker for reporting the problems.)

Changes to documentation and commentary

The two new files 'theory.html' and 'calendars' contain the
contents of the removed file 'Theory'. The goal is to document
tzdb theory more accessibly.

The zic man page now documents abbreviation rules.

tz-link.htm now covers how to apply tzdata changes to clients.
(Thanks to Jorge F��bregas for the AIX link.) It also mentions MySQL.

The leap-seconds.list URL has been updated to something that is
more reliable for tzdb. (Thanks to Tim Parenti and Brian Inglis.)

Welcome to 2017c:

zic and the reference runtime now reject multiple leap seconds
within 28 days of each other, or leap seconds before the Epoch.
As a result, support for double leap seconds, which was
obsolescent and undocumented, has been removed. Double leap
seconds were an error in the C89 standard; they have never existed
in civil timekeeping. (Thanks to Robert Elz and Bradley White for
noticing glitches in the code that uncovered this problem.)

zic now warns about use of the obsolescent and undocumented -y
option, and about use of the obsolescent TYPE field of Rule lines.

zic now allows unambiguous abbreviations like "Sa" and "Su" for
weekdays; formerly it rejected them due to a bug. Conversely, zic
no longer considers non-prefixes to be abbreviations; for example,
it no longer accepts "lF" as an abbreviation for "lastFriday".
Also, zic warns about the undocumented usage with a "last-"
prefix, e.g., "last-Fri".

Similarly, zic now accepts the unambiguous abbreviation "L" for
"Link" in ordinary context and for "Leap" in leap-second context.
Conversely, zic no longer accepts non-prefixes such as "La" as
abbreviations for words like "Leap".

zic no longer accepts leap second lines in ordinary input, or
ordinary lines in leap second input. Formerly, zic sometimes
warned about this undocumented usage and handled it incorrectly.

The new macro HAVE_TZNAME governs whether the tzname external
variable is exported, instead of USG_COMPAT. USG_COMPAT now
governs only the external variables "timezone" and "daylight".
This change is needed because the three variables are not in the
same category: although POSIX requires tzname, it specifies the
other two variables as optional. Also, USG_COMPAT is now 1 or 0:
if not defined, the code attempts to guess it from other macros.

localtime.c and difftime.c no longer require stdio.h, and .c files
other than zic.c no longer require sys/wait.h.

zdump.c no longer assumes snprintf. (Reported by Jonathan Leffler.)

Calculation of time_t extrema works around a bug in GCC 4.8.4
(Reported by Stan Shebs and Joseph Myers.)

zic.c no longer mistranslates formats of line numbers in non-English
locales. (Problem reported by Benno Schulenberg.)

Several minor changes have been made to the code to make it a
bit easier to port to MS-Windows and Solaris. (Thanks to Kees
Dekker for reporting the problems.)

Changes to documentation and commentary

The two new files 'theory.html' and 'calendars' contain the
contents of the removed file 'Theory'. The goal is to document
tzdb theory more accessibly.

The zic man page now documents abbreviation rules.

tz-link.htm now covers how to apply tzdata changes to clients.
(Thanks to Jorge F��bregas for the AIX link.) It also mentions MySQL.

The leap-seconds.list URL has been updated to something that is
more reliable for tzdb. (Thanks to Tim Parenti and Brian Inglis.)