I think this is going to make Derick's head explode :)
This is likely due to the fact that Ubuntu patches PHP to use the system timezone 
info as opposed to the default bundled data. If you build a clean version of PHP 
on Ubuntu using the code we actually distribute, I think you will find that the 
problem goes away.

Sorry, but your problem does not imply a bug in PHP itself.  For a
list of more appropriate places to ask for help using PHP, please
visit http://www.php.net/support.php as this bug system is not the
appropriate forum for asking support questions.  Due to the volume
of reports we can not explain in detail here why your report is not
a bug.  The support channels will be able to provide an explanation
for you.

Thank you for your interest in PHP.

Complain at your distribution for messing it up.

Thanks for the update, it's indeed Debian's fault. 

http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=618462

Hi guys,

We'll take up further discussion on the bug over there, but thought I would cut/paste the (slightly amended) initial response here just for posterity's sake.

===

Hi Maciej,

Does this actually cause a quantifiable and significant performance
regression?  This possibility of performance issues was discussed some
time ago but it was decided that the stat calls would just hit the kernel
fs cache and not cause any serious problems.

If there are indeed problems, there are certainly ways this could be
worked around, but it would add even further complexity
to the patch which we'd all prefer to avoid if possible.


To give you some extra background, since the PHP authors certainly have
their own take on the situation: EVERY serious linux distribution
ships this patch in some form.  Redhat, Fedora, Debian, Ubuntu, SLES,
Opensuse (okay, maybe not Gentoo, but anyway...) all ship with this patch.
So please keep that in mind when you here both sides of this argument :)


The problem is that when the OS distributors release a timezone update,
they don't want to *also* have to go package by package updating
individual and "customized" timezone databases that might be embedded
in a given application.  Neither do they want to continuously update the
version of PHP in their "stable" releases and have to deal with the numerous
regressions that would result.  The PHP tzdata changes are mixed in with the
mainline development, and sometimes depend on other changes within the
engine, so it's not really feasible to cherry pick out the changes into
a stable release, even if we wanted to.

This is a point of disagreement with the PHP authors, who want to have
control over this aspect of the engine themselves (and they certainly have
their justifications, such as systems with outdated or nonexistant tzdata,
plus they add some extra TZ annotations in their private copy).
Unfortunately they are not interested in providing any other way to work
around this issue, despite the periodic overture from us or RedHat.
The invitation is still open to try and find a reasonable technical
solution for this, but I have been led to beleive that Derick has really
dug in his heels on the issue and it's not worth any of our time to
raise a big stink about it.

vJust a small comment on

> The PHP tzdata changes are mixed in with the
> mainline development, and sometimes depend on
> other changes within the engine, so it's not
> really feasible to cherry pick out the changes
> into a stable release, even if we wanted to.

This is not true. Distributions can distribute the timezone update using the pecl/timzeone package. No messing with engine stuff needed.

johannes@php.net: 

I can see at least two problems Debian (and other distribution) maintainers will 
have with the solution you have proposed. They would have to make PHP dependent 
on PECL, which is currently not the case (at least not in Debian). On other hand 
it will eventually lead to a situation in which PHP's timezone update has been 
rolled out and system's not, or vice-versa.

Why not just make pecl/timezone dependent on the system timezone update. It seems 
easy enough to me. Your PHP package depends on pecl/timezone and pecl/timezone 
depends on the system timezone package. That should keep it all in synch.

rasmus@php.net: 

It will still force them to distribute PECL (may be a concern for people 
building embedded/very small systems shipped with PHP). 

I don't really know PHP code, had just a very brief look at the patch itself and 
related functions, so what I'm saying may be completely invalid. What about 
compiling timezone data into dynamically loaded library, which they could ship 
separately of PECL/PHP itself / easily replace with calls to theirs?

No it won't. You can distribute a binary pecl extension without needing "PECL". 
I'm not even sure what you mean by "PECL" here. An individual pecl extension is 
just a simple shared library. Nothing more.

I thought you've meant triggering "pecl upgrade" upon installing the new version 
of php-timezone package.