RSX-DEV@DEC-MARLBORO.ARPA (01/29/84)
I would strongly support use of the ISO standard with local time and a numeric offset. As Rich says, the local time is an important piece of mail context. The offset allows it to be easily compared to the recipient's local time or any other time. I'd like to see the name of the zone as well (as a comment, like John Covert is a comment in the From: header). We can't expect standardi- zation of time zone names, because you aren't going to get people in Paris and Munich to agree on only one of HEC and MEZ. The German abbreviation in the summer is MESZ; I don't remember the French. As an aside, remember that all locations that use Daylight Savings time do not switch on the same date. Hawaii does not observe Daylight Savings time. Note that the historical information I've provided on time zones in the North American integrated telepone numbering zone comes from the V&H tape. Since I don't have a new tape yet, my info on Alaska came from making several phone calls to police and weather stations. Prior to the switch in Alaska, there were only THREE locations with dial telephones on Yukon time (one in Alaska and two in the Yukon Territory) and twelve more ringdown call boxes in the Yukon Territory. Whitehorse, YT is on Pacific time. --------
Klensin@MIT-MULTICS.ARPA (John C. Klensin) (08/24/86)
Jacob, The mailer agent at Multics canonicalizes dates and times into an internal format when they pass through its clutches, then reinterprets them into displayable local times (now EDT) as they go back out. So, something that came through here on its way to a MAILNET site like QZ with a +/-nnnn time (or an RFC822-conforming named zone) will leave here as EDT. Dates and times that cannot be canonicalized (i.e,. that do not conform to RFC822) result in a header being rebuilt from the envelope, with obvious unfortunate consequences. I didn't do the software, nor make the rules, nor completely agree that they are the right rules to have, but that is the way it works and thought the explanation might be helpful. John