dates and their representation

[Brian Warner]

raf at comdyn.com.au (raf) writes:

> Werner wrote:
> 
> >Michael Deindl <olmur at dwarf.bb.bawue.de> writes:
> 
> >> I want to support this suggestion:  local time is usually a good idea
> >> and should be the default.  But having an option to switch to UTC is a 
> 
> >Here is the reason, why I do not like time conversion:
> 
> >pub  1024D/57548DCD 1998-07-07 Werner Koch (gnupg sig) <dd9jn at gnu.org>
> 
> >This may get listed as -07-08 or -07-06 depending on the timezone.
> >I think that this could lead to some confusion if two persons list the
> >key but get different times (yes they are not different really, but it
> >seems so)
> 
> i don't understand. how can it lead to confusion
> if these two people are in different timezones?
> 
> raf

Suppose I created a key right now. It's 1998-09-22 where I am, but in Germany
it's 1998-09-23. Four months from now when you list your keyring and see my
key, what date should it list as a creation date? Does it depend upon where
you are living at the time?

The same holds true for recording when signatures are made. I'm afraid that my
preference is to display the date local to the creator or signator: If I
signed a document at a point when my time zone was in Thursday, then when you
check the signature it should report that the signature was made in that time
zone on a Thursday.  Unfortunately this would mean keeping a timestamp *and* a
zone offset (or worse.. those modern POSIXish? timezone structures come to
mind) in with the signatures.

Failing that, always display it the same way, but have that way be a user
preference, and full timestamps should be displayed in a way that indicates
which way the user preferred (with a -0700 or a UTC or something).

cheers,
 -Brian