Re: #1028 USEFOR 3.1.2 Date: Resolved, I think.

[Russ Allbery <rra@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Harald Tveit Alvestrand <harald@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> writes:

> My reading of the text and the discussion is that the group wishes to
> allow a parser to NOT recognize "EST" as anything more valid than "ABC".
> (Otherwise, the whole fuss about requiring handling of "GMT" would be
> completely meaningless.)

I think this is a very iffy decision to make.  I can see not caring about
any time zone other than the RFC 2822 ones, but really, I don't see a lot
of excuse for not parsing all of the traditional textual time zones.

> If anyone but Bruce wants to argue in favour of recognizing *all*
> timezones mentioned in RFC 2822, which is the logical consequence of
> Bruce's argument, please speak up now.

I'll argue in favor of that, since otherwise we would be going from
blessing use if reluctantly (RFC 1036) to allowing parsers to disregard
them without any intervening deprecation period.

It would surprise me if there are any existing Usenet date parsers that
don't handle all of the RFC 2822 zones with the exception of the badly
specified and almost never seen military zones.

-- 
Russ Allbery (rra@xxxxxxxxxxxx)             <http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/>