On Tue, 2 May 2023 at 11:19, Benjamin Drung <benjamin.drung@canonical.com> wrote:
Help on wording will be highly appreciated. Currently debconf will ask "Please select the city or region corresponding to your time zone. Time zone: GMT, GMT+0, GMT+1, ..., GMT-9, Greenwich, UCT, UTC, Universal, Zulu".
Draft: "Please select the offset corresponding to your time zone. Contrary to UTC, positive values to GMT refer to zones west to Greenwich and negative values to east to Greenwich (e.g. UTC-6 = GMT+6). Time zone: GMT, GMT+0, GMT+1, ..., GMT-9, Greenwich, UCT, UTC, Universal, Zulu".
It would be more accurate to say something more along the lines of: "Contrary to modern conventions, POSIX-compatible zones use positive values to refer to zones west of Greenwich and negative values for those east of Greenwich (e.g., 'Etc/GMT+6' refers to 6 hours west of Greenwich, commonly called 'UTC-6')." On Tue, 2 May 2023 at 12:43, Benjamin Drung via tz <tz@iana.org> wrote:
For the tz project UTC = GMT, isn't it?
To most practical effect, yes. That's why, if possible, I would recommend avoiding exposing POSIX-signed terms like "GMT±n" without the leading "Etc/" used in the full zone name, as that could contribute further to exactly the type of confusion you seek to avoid. -- Tim Parenti