- From: Yutaka OIWA <y.oiwa@aist.go.jp>
- Date: Mon, 16 Jul 2012 23:58:53 +0900
- To: Poul-Henning Kamp <phk@phk.freebsd.dk>
- Cc: Mark Nottingham <mnot@mnot.net>, HTTP Working Group <ietf-http-wg@w3.org>
Dear Poul, 2012/7/16 Poul-Henning Kamp <phk@phk.freebsd.dk>: > In message <CAMeZVwscuX986t9KMD0eXou-fgHUG8DBBkx2++AbJAt0gDs+Ng@mail.gmail.com> > , Yutaka OIWA writes: > >>>> If an HTTP header field incorrectly carries a date value with a time zone other than GMT, it must be converted into GMT using the most conservative possible conversion. >>> >>> What does "most conservative" mean? > > >>My personal proposal is instead of adding any examples, state it like "it may be >>converted to GMT using whatever methods they think appropriate", > > As a time-geek, I would caution against that, because names of timezones > are politically chosen and both their definition and naming is highly > fragile in various parts of the world. Yes, that's why I am proposing to remove any clauses that morally require people to parse wrong dates "correctly". I think my proposal is along with, not against your suggested direction. # The original text requests people to parse these appropriately and conservatively. > Given that it is a class-A fuckup to send wrong dates, I will advocate > that such timestamps SHOULD be ignored, but CAN be interpreted on a > best-effort basis. +1 on default to ignore. That's one step further beyond my proposal and it makes sense. But I am not sure, are there any HTTP date-related headers for which ignoring is more dangerous than guessing? > Ohh, and also: GMT is (maybe!) what parliament decides in the UK, the > correct "independent" timescale is called UTC. This is very historic :-) In HTTP, GMT *is* the mnemonic for the Universal Coordinated Time, independent from any local time standards of UK. -- Yutaka OIWA, Ph.D. Leader, Software Reliability Research Group Research Institute for Secure Systems (RISEC) National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST) Mail addresses: <y.oiwa@aist.go.jp>, <yutaka@oiwa.jp> OpenPGP: id[440546B5] fp[7C9F 723A 7559 3246 229D 3139 8677 9BD2 4405 46B5]
Received on Monday, 16 July 2012 14:59:40 UTC