Why is /usr/share/zoneinfo empty in ubi8-minimal images despite the tzdata package being present?

Issue

• In Red Hat Enterprise Linux Minimal Universal Base Images, although the tzdata package is present, why is the /usr/share/zoneinfo directory empty?
• Having the /usr/share/zoneinfo directory may cause errors in applications and runtimes that require it, such as the R runtime.

• This can be seen by launching a container with docker or podman, and checking the directory and presence of the package:

  $ podman run --name=test --rm registry.redhat.io/ubi8-minimal sh -c "rpm -q tzdata; ls -lattrh /usr/share/zoneinfo"
  tzdata-2020d-1.el8.noarch
  ls: cannot access '/usr/share/zoneinfo': No such file or directory
  
  $ yum whatprovides /usr/share/zoneinfo
  - - - - 8< - - - -
  tzdata-2020d-1.el8.noarch : Timezone data
  Repo        : rhel-8-for-x86_64-baseos-rpms
  Matched from:
  Filename    : /usr/share/zoneinfo