[Bug 16960] i18n-ISSUE-89: Time zones and local dates and times

https://www.w3.org/Bugs/Public/show_bug.cgi?id=16960

--- Comment #3 from Addison Phillips <addison@lab126.com> 2012-09-18 15:21:56 UTC ---
The I18N WG would like you to consider several ways of addressing the issues
raised by the 'local date and time' microsyntax. 

One way of addressing it would be to define it in terms of a floating time
value, although floating times are usually either a date (with no
hour/minute/second value) representing an event such as a birthdate that is not
ties to a specific time zone or to a time (with no day/month/year) which can be
interpreted as a local wall time in any time zone (such as the time of day to
observe the DST transition), rather than a combination of both.

Another would be to mention the problem of time zones and allow implementations
to tie the value to a specific arbitrary time zone (probably UTC) when
comparing/converting to/from incremental time values. For example, ECMAScript
Date values are incremental times (millis since epoch) and the relationship
between 'local date and time' and this type of incremental time should be
clear.

Note that if this were the case, the name of the microsyntax would be
misleading. It's not a 'local date and time' unless it somehow corresponds to
local wall time, is it? But if it corresponds to local wall time, then it
inherently has a time zone which is most probably not UTC. In that case, the
time zone should be explicit and explicitly available.

I am aware that this microsyntax is not an invention of HTML5, but the I18N WG
is concerned that the definitions provided make it too easy to create forms and
pages that don't handle time values correctly or which change time values in
subtle but quite broken ways.

-- 
Configure bugmail: https://www.w3.org/Bugs/Public/userprefs.cgi?tab=email
------- You are receiving this mail because: -------
You are the QA contact for the bug.

Received on Tuesday, 18 September 2012 15:22:09 UTC