On 21 April 2023 17:59:38 BST, Paul Eggert via tz <tz@iana.org> wrote:
On 2023-04-21 06:32, Benjamin Drung via tz wrote:
What do you think about the idea of introducing Etc/UTC+x timezones that have the "correct" offset so that people can select fixed offsets more easily?
Wouldn't this introduce confusion? Etc/UTC+2 would mean the opposite of Etc/GMT+2. We can't get rid of the latter name, due to backward compatibility. Furthermore, Etc/UTC+2 would magnify Etc/GMT+2's problem, in that it would tempt people into writing TZ='UTC+2' which is just wrong.
The bug reports you cited don't seem to be instances of user confusion with tzdata, only of frustration that dpkg-reconfigure presents these wrong-signed names to the user. However, those names are meant for internal use, just as the other Zone names are. So the real bug here seems to be with dpkg-reconfigure, not with tzdata.
In contrast, tzselect gets this right: it does not expose names like Etc/GMT+2 to the user.
In PHP we actively discourage people using these Etc/GMT zones, as they're not actually zones, but fixed offsets . They're often just temporary place holders for the offset at some time during the year. And we're of the opinion that they shouldn't be used in user facing interfaces at all. cheers Derick