POSTEL@USC-ISIF.ARPA (02/02/84)
Neil Davies: Great citations. But no time zone designators (e.g., BST) in them only numeric offsets from UCT. --jon. -------
RSX-DEV@DEC-MARLBORO.ARPA (John R. Covert) (02/02/84)
I wouldn't expect to find time zone designators in an ISO standard. ISO rarely resolves issues as complex as whether to call the time zone used in continental Europe HEC or MEZ. When dealing with an issue as close to the heart as the native tongue of the ISO member nations, only numbers can win the votes necessary to pass. We can banty this around forever without getting anywhere. Based on the inputs we have heard local time is the only thing we can be guaranteed will be put into a header because many machines and interfaces are purposefully simple to allow them access to the market and the net. A qualification by zone name is only useful visually since the zone names are not standardized. But this visual identification is useful to the reader. A qualification by UTC offset is nice and is an ISO standard. Since we aren't going to get every mailer to conform, we should state levels of conformance. At the lowest level, simply local time is provided. At the next level, local time is qualified by the UTC offset in the ISO format. At either level a text time zone identification can be added with the understanding that it has purely the effect of a comment and may not be parsed. --------