>> >I live in Italy, GMT+1.
>> >I have a NetBSD machine (1.6 currently) whose kernel is set to have a 0 
>> >minutes west of GMT (west???). Hence, hardware clock is set to GMT.
>> >I have a symlink for /etc/localtime to /usr/share/zoneinfo/Etc/GMT+1
>> >
>> >Now the problems:
>> >1) "date" gives the time 2 hours behind localtime (as if I told it to use 
>> >GMT-1)
>> 
>> your local time is one hour ahead of gmt, so you need to substract one
>> hour to calculate gmt.  use GMT-1.  i need to add five hours to
>> calculate gmt (from north america), so i am at GMT+5.
>
>No, thats incorrect. You are living in North America so you are living 
>in GMT-5, please see http://www.time.gov/ for USA 

no, you didn't read what i wrote.  yes, i would logically call my time
zone GMT-5, but in order to use one of the time zone files from
/usr/share/zoneinfo/Etc, i'd have to use the one called GMT+5, because
that's hte *posix* name for the zone i'm in.

>The timezones start with Zulu (0) in Greenwich and go west +1h til +12 
>from there on it is counted viceversa from -12 down to Zulu, so there are 25
>timezone (Mike and Yankee are used for the geographically dateborder).

so if i go five hours west of greenwich, and arrive in the eastern us,
i'm at GMT+5, right?  that's posix style.

>> >2) sending mails puts headers like this: (from a mail I sent today)
>> >Date: Thu, 6 Feb 2003 12:00:18 -0100 (GMT+1)
>> >Now, GMT time is still correct (13:00:18) but local time was 14:00:18, the 
>> >time should be +0100 (GMT+1) not -0100 (GMT-1)
>> >
>> >I really don't understand what and why happens.
>> 
>> i would suggest using one of more readable zones like Europe/Rome,
>> Europe/Vatican, Europe/San_Marino, or Europe/Malta, depending on your
>> taste.  otherwise, you should switch to Etc/GMT-1.
>
>Sure not your mailprogram is the problem?
>I used pine and now mutt with GMT+1 (Berlin) and I got no Problems.

presumably this will all work fine when he picks the proper timezone.

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