365289 - Bugzilla displays time zone names wrong for summer/winter (daylight savings) time changes

Status: RESOLVED DUPLICATE of bug 182238

(Bugzilla :: Creating/Changing Bugs, defect)

Description

[David Baron :dbaron: (⌚️UTC-4, no longer working on Mozilla)]

Bugzilla displays incorrect time zone names for comments that are dated in the one of summer/winter time that we are not currently in.

Ideally, it should display the correct time zone name for:
 * the time zone (e.g., "America/Los_Angeles"), and
 * the time that is being displayed

For example, bugzilla.mozilla.org seems to operate in the time zone described in the Olson database as America/Los_Angeles, where summer time is called PDT and is UTC-0700, and winter time is called PST and is UTC-0800.

A comment written in summer time, containing a time three minutes before it was written, is bug 196270 comment 57.  The comment was clearly written at 2005-08-29 12:33:34 PDT, yet the user interface says it was written at 2005-08-29 12:33:34 PST.

A similar comment written in winter time is bug 285910 comment 3.  Once we switch to summer time the bug will be visible there instead.

Steps to reproduce:
 1. look at the comment headers of bug 196270 comment 57 and bug 285910 comment 3

Expected results:
No matter what the current time of year, bug 196270 comment 57 is indicated as being written at 2005-08-29 12:33:34 PDT and bug 285910 comment 3 is indicated as being written at 2005-03-12 21:24:09 PST.

(Note that an inferior, but still marginally correct, alternative would be to convert the times to the current of summer/winter time and indicate the current summer/winter zone name rather than using the zone as it was when the comment was written.)

Actual results:  The time is always given as the appropriate time at the time the comment was written, but the zone name is the current zone name rather than the zone name that matches the time given.

Comment 1

[Max Kanat-Alexander]

Bugzilla doesn't actually support time zones. What you see there as the "time zone" is a text string that has been entered by the administrator.