No subject

  In 1928, the International Astronomical Union recommended that the   
  time used in the compilation of astronomical almanacs, essentially   
  GMT, or what was also sometimes called Greenwich Civil Time, be   
  referred to as Universal Time.  The terms "Universal Time" and   
  "Universal Day" were introduced at the various conferences in the   
  1800's held to set up the standard time system.

> Even though the reference standard has changed a few times since then,
> the public continues to call it `GMT'.

I feel, GMT is only widely known in English speaking countries. In
Germany for instance, the term Weltzeit (translates as "world time" or
may be "universal time") is usualy used (for example on shortwave
radio, Deutsche Welle ~6.1 MHz) and the time zone map that you'll find
in geography school books and for example in the information booklets
in every Lufthansa plane say UTC and not GMT.

BTW: Quite a number of on-line ressources about time are available on
<URL:http://www.yahoo.com/Science/Weights_and_Measures/Measurements/Time/>.

I would exchange GMT for UTC as in the patch below.  This patch also
removes UCT, assuming that this is the abbreviation for "Universal
Coordinated Time", something I have never encountered outside the
etcetera file.

Markus

-- 
Markus G. Kuhn, Computer Science grad student, Purdue
University, Indiana, USA -- email: kuhn at cs.purdue.edu


--- etcetera.orig	Thu Oct  3 20:08:28 1996
+++ etcetera	Thu Oct  3 21:13:49 1996
@@ -1,55 +1,60 @@
 # @(#)etcetera	7.5
 
 # All of these are set up just so people can "zic -l" to a timezone
 # that's right for their area, even if it doesn't have a name or DST rules
 # (half hour zones are too much to bother with -- when someone asks!)
 
+Zone	Etc/UTC		0	-	UTC
+Link	Etc/UTC				Etc/Universal
+Link	Etc/UTC				Etc/UTC-0
+Link	Etc/UTC				Etc/UTC+0
+Link	Etc/UTC				Etc/UTC0
+Link	Etc/UTC				Etc/Zulu
+
+# Since the early 1970s, UTC has been the correct official term for
+# the international reference time zone defined in ITU-R
+# Recommendation TF.460-4.  For old-fashioned British patriots, we
+# still offer the classic name of this time zone:
+
 Zone	Etc/GMT		0	-	GMT
-Link	Etc/GMT				Etc/UTC
-Link	Etc/GMT				Etc/UCT
-Link	Etc/GMT				Etc/Universal
 Link	Etc/GMT				Etc/Greenwich
-Link	Etc/GMT				Etc/Zulu
-Link	Etc/GMT				Etc/GMT-0
-Link	Etc/GMT				Etc/GMT+0
-Link	Etc/GMT				Etc/GMT0
 
 # We use POSIX-style signedness in the names and output,
 # internal-style signedness in the specifications.
-# For example, TZ=Etc/GMT+4 corresponds to 4 hours _behind_ GMT;
-# it is equivalent to TZ=GMT+4, which is implemented directly as per POSIX.
+# For example, TZ=Etc/UTC+4 corresponds to 4 hours _behind_ UTC;
+# it is equivalent to TZ=UTC+4, which is implemented directly as per POSIX.
 
 # Earlier incarnations of this package were not POSIX-compliant,
 # and had lines such as
-#		Zone	GMT-12		-12	-	GMT-1200
+#		Zone	UTC-12		-12	-	UTC-1200
 # We did not want things to change quietly if someone accustomed to the old
 # way does a
-#		zic -l GMT-12
+#		zic -l UTC-12
 # so we moved the names into the Etc subdirectory.
 
-Zone	Etc/GMT-14	14	-	GMT-14	# 14 hours ahead of GMT
-Zone	Etc/GMT-13	13	-	GMT-13
-Zone	Etc/GMT-12	12	-	GMT-12
-Zone	Etc/GMT-11	11	-	GMT-11
-Zone	Etc/GMT-10	10	-	GMT-10
-Zone	Etc/GMT-9	9	-	GMT-9
-Zone	Etc/GMT-8	8	-	GMT-8
-Zone	Etc/GMT-7	7	-	GMT-7
-Zone	Etc/GMT-6	6	-	GMT-6
-Zone	Etc/GMT-5	5	-	GMT-5
-Zone	Etc/GMT-4	4	-	GMT-4
-Zone	Etc/GMT-3	3	-	GMT-3
-Zone	Etc/GMT-2	2	-	GMT-2
-Zone	Etc/GMT-1	1	-	GMT-1
-Zone	Etc/GMT+1	-1	-	GMT+1
-Zone	Etc/GMT+2	-2	-	GMT+2
-Zone	Etc/GMT+3	-3	-	GMT+3
-Zone	Etc/GMT+4	-4	-	GMT+4
-Zone	Etc/GMT+5	-5	-	GMT+5
-Zone	Etc/GMT+6	-6	-	GMT+6
-Zone	Etc/GMT+7	-7	-	GMT+7
-Zone	Etc/GMT+8	-8	-	GMT+8
-Zone	Etc/GMT+9	-9	-	GMT+9
-Zone	Etc/GMT+10	-10	-	GMT+10
-Zone	Etc/GMT+11	-11	-	GMT+11
-Zone	Etc/GMT+12	-12	-	GMT+12
+Zone	Etc/UTC-14	14	-	UTC-14	# 14 hours ahead of UTC
+Zone	Etc/UTC-13	13	-	UTC-13
+Zone	Etc/UTC-12	12	-	UTC-12
+Zone	Etc/UTC-11	11	-	UTC-11
+Zone	Etc/UTC-10	10	-	UTC-10
+Zone	Etc/UTC-9	9	-	UTC-9
+Zone	Etc/UTC-8	8	-	UTC-8
+Zone	Etc/UTC-7	7	-	UTC-7
+Zone	Etc/UTC-6	6	-	UTC-6
+Zone	Etc/UTC-5	5	-	UTC-5
+Zone	Etc/UTC-4	4	-	UTC-4
+Zone	Etc/UTC-3	3	-	UTC-3
+Zone	Etc/UTC-2	2	-	UTC-2
+Zone	Etc/UTC-1	1	-	UTC-1
+Zone	Etc/UTC+1	-1	-	UTC+1
+Zone	Etc/UTC+2	-2	-	UTC+2
+Zone	Etc/UTC+3	-3	-	UTC+3
+Zone	Etc/UTC+4	-4	-	UTC+4
+Zone	Etc/UTC+5	-5	-	UTC+5
+Zone	Etc/UTC+6	-6	-	UTC+6
+Zone	Etc/UTC+7	-7	-	UTC+7
+Zone	Etc/UTC+8	-8	-	UTC+8
+Zone	Etc/UTC+9	-9	-	UTC+9
+Zone	Etc/UTC+10	-10	-	UTC+10
+Zone	Etc/UTC+11	-11	-	UTC+11
+Zone	Etc/UTC+12	-12	-	UTC+12