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You misunderstood what I meant. I was talking about using a library rather than waiting for it to be a part of the core. I didn't say you shouldn't use Zoneinfo. Zoneinfo is not a package. It is a standard and set of data. You have to implement it. The actual zoneinfo is available here:
ftp://elsie.nci.nih.gov/pub/

The only reason why it is part of the php5 core, rather than just available through a pear package or a library, is because some people are not of the inclination to use any libraries and can't install pear packages because they are on a shared hosting, and their webhost refuses to change anything. Mostly they just do know about it. That would summarise the average php coder. It is sloppy code and caters for sloppy coders.

Sure you might get it with your particualar installation of Ruby, but you won't get to use it without specifying you want it first (indeed to can use the TzInfo gem: http://tzinfo.rubyforge.org/). This is one of the reasons why php is so slow, it assumes you want everything that comes in the bundle loaded and everything is always there.

The php core is excessive. There are extensions and packages but I suspect they are underused.

You misunderstood what I meant. I was talking about using a library. I certainly don't want to have to implement it. I want to pick it up off the shelf, which is exactly where it is, on most OSes. On MS, if phpBB wants to display dates correctly, it has to do it itself (which I think would be wrong), or wait for some 3rd party (PHP5) to come along and provide a working system. As to any details, they are irrelevant.

I also feel that having the zoneinfo stuff managed by PHP5, .NET libraries, Ruby libraries, or anything else like that is utterly wrong. It must be kept up-to-date. That requires the OS to be involved, in any genuine "system". E.g. the .NET library I found said that it required rebuilding of the applications, in order to accommodate updates to the zoneinfo data.