[tz] [PROPOSED PATCH 1/4] Prefer +-NN notation for UT-offset time zones in comments.

Paul Eggert eggert at cs.ucla.edu
Wed Aug 24 19:05:00 UTC 2016


Random832 wrote:
> Are there any countries whose law still prescribes the time zone as a
> meridian

Legal time in the UK is still officially offset from GMT, not from UTC. See 
<https://www.polyomino.org.uk/british-time/>. This is a bit dicey, since GMT is 
no longer maintained. I expect other countries specify something similar, though 
I don't know of any offhand. India, perhaps?

In practice people don't follow this part of UK law exactly as written, and use 
UTC even when a strict reading of the law might require GMT. For example, as 
part of the EU, the UK requires electronic signatures' time stamps to be linked 
to UTC, not GMT (see regulation 910/2014/EU). I doubt whether this would change 
even if Brexit becomes real.


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