224744 - jsdate should use 'UTC' instead of 'GMT'

Status: RESOLVED INVALID

(Core :: JavaScript Engine, defect)

Description

[Jungshik Shin]

In jsdate.c, 'GMT' is used where 'UTC' should be used when formating date-time
string. GMT  got replaced by UTC ~30 years ago although BBC and a lot of people
still use it to mean UTC.

Comment 1

[Phil Schwartau]

A couple references off the Internet, on GMT vs. UTC:

Short and sweet:
http://lists.debian.org/debian-boot/1999/debian-boot-199901/msg00450.html

More than you ever wanted to know:
http://www.apparent-wind.com/gmt-explained.html

Comment 2

[Jo Hermans]

I haven't found it yet in the ECMA-262 standard, but toGMTString() uses the
RFC1123 format (update on RFC822), and that uses GMT ... See also
http://www.w3.org/Protocols/rfc2616/rfc2616-sec3.html#sec3.3

It's a well known fact that the usage of GMT is wrong, and should really be read
as "UTC". GMT is now sometimes used as the name of the english timezone, but the
difference is that it now supported daylight savings time, so it can mean both
UTC+0 and UTC+1. That's also why the English often use WET as their timezone, to
avoid confusion with the original GMT. The BBC does (I just checked on TV).

My hobby is sailing, where I am the navigator on a racing yacht. Well, the
barkeeper mostly :-) Even the manual of my GPS receiver still mentions GMT, and
warns against its use, because it can have a double meaning.

Comment 3

[Jo Hermans]

The ECMA-262 standard says that the format is implementation-defined, but even
Microsoft uses 'GMT' in its implementation :
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/en-us/script56/html/js56jsmthtogmtstring.asp?frame=true
 . Note that toGMTString and toUTCString are supposed to return the same
information (see bug 58673).

I don't think we should risk backwards compatibility with IE, just to be
pedantic. The reason why Mozilla and IE uses the RFC1123 format, is because it's
used in HTTP/1.1

Comment 4

[Bob Clary [:bc] (inactive)]

-> default qa

Comment 5

[Bob Clary [:bc] (inactive)]

*** Bug 323458 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 6

[Luke Wagner [:luke]]

toGMTString is in the spec now.