Does local time zone need a name?

[Randy Kramer]

On Monday 02 April 2007 11:30 am, David Jarvie wrote:
> This highlights one of the problems of using "local zone" in place of the
> time zone name. "Local zone" can have two quite distinct meanings as far
> as a user is concerned:
> 
> - in some circumstances I might mean the local zone in use I set something
> up, and don't change the zone even if I later change time zones. For
> example, I might want to set up a regular phone meeting with my boss for
> 10:00 in my home time zone. If in 6 months' time I unexpectedly had to
> make a foreign trip west it might then become 05:00 (heaven forbid!) in
> the new local zone.
> 
> - the case you cite is the other interpretation of "local zone". I want to
> be woken up at a particular time of day in whatever happens to be the
> local zone at the time of the wake-up call.
> 
> How is a user to easily distinguish between these two meanings? For the
> former, IMHO the actual time zone name should be used; the meaning is then
> unambiguous. "Local zone" should be reserved for the latter case, i.e. a
> flexible meaning dependent on location.

+1 Thank you!

Randy Kramer