Dear Krystian and tz team, The program on TWiki.org takes the data from the Olson tz database, http://www.twinsun.com/tz/tz-link.htm I am not sure I can explain the +/- GMT question, someone from the Olson tz database team is probably better in that. More info on GMT at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GMT Info on timezones at http://wwp.greenwichmeantime.com/info/timezone.htm Interstingly, above site shows GMT times in reverse to the Olson database! E.g. for me in California, the Olson database tells me I am in Etc/GMT+8, and greenwichmeantime.com tells me I am GMT-8. Regards, Confused Peter krystian@mindspring.com wrote:

This question pertains to the data within:

TWiki.org Service: Date and Time Gateway http://twiki.org/cgi-bin/xtra/tzdate

Which I believe is under a revision by your penmanship.

Q. Are the GMT offsets mixed in this website? When I think of GMT-5 I think of Eastern Standard Time, however your site lists GMT-5 as where I always think GMT+5 is.

...

Greenwich Mean Time: (GMT/UCT/UTC/Universal/Zulu; positive numbers count hours west of GMT

What is the cause of having positive numbers count west of GMT? Aren't positive numbers, by definition, to be east of GMT? (like GMT+5 is add 5 hours to the time at GMT?)

I've seen lots of confusion about this on the web and I don't understand why this is so. I have always thought GMT-5 was Eastern Standard Time, not some time in the European longitudes.

Can you please speculate on this? I'm also trying to find the difference between UTC and GMT (as I've read they are the same but not exactly). Maybe this is how they differ.

I'm terribly confused. Please offer an explanation to your readers in the form of a link or direct them to such a place.

Regards, Roland Krystian Alberciak.

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