Date: 22 Mar 1996 17:26:49 GMT
Message-ID: <19960322172649.7048.qmail@koobera.math.uic.edu>
From: djb@koobera.math.uic.edu (D. J. Bernstein)
To: drums@cs.utk.edu
Subject: Re: timezones & Date

I had forgotten exactly which broken MUA it was, but I looked it up.

It was ``the WIN95 email client for MS Exchange.''

I think I've heard the name ``WIN95'' before. It's some niche OS, right?
Do any of us really care about it?

> "Time zones MUST be in numeric format; any other information to
> convey to the user may be put in comments."

I think it suffices to say ``Time zones MUST be in numeric format.''
Perhaps with an explanation of why: ``This lets the receiving MUA
reliably show the Date information in the receiver's local time.''

(Btw, after surveying the real-world getdate() situation, I withdraw my
objection to the MUST here. The particular string "GMT" is still a win
in news, but not in e-mail, and future versions of my header agent will
use "+0000" instead.)

---Dan