Wrong time stated in calendar messages sent between Outlook client

U

Ulf E

Hi!

It seems that the calendar messages sent between Outlook clients, i.e.
messages tagged as Content-class: urn:content-classes:calendarmessage, are
stating an incorrect UTC time during the daylight saving time periods.

I wonder whether this is a problem within "my" calendar community or a
general problem? See problem description below ...

UTC as such is a fixed time zone, independent of DST (Daylight Saving Time).
(It may sometimes also be expressed as GMT. UTC/GMT is also used sometimes.)
[http://www.timeanddate.com]

Most of western Europe is normally (except for summer) using CET (Central
European Time), which is UTC +1 hour. During summer, CEST (Central European
Summer Time), which is UTC +2 hours, is used.

In normal human discussions this is not a general problem, since people know
implicitly whether DST is used or not. But within computer communication it
might be a problem ...

A meeting in Sweden at 10 A.M. during non-DST ought to be expressed as 10:00
(UTC/GMT+01:00), and during DST as 10:00 (UTC/GMT+02:00).

However, the calendar messages sent by Outlook seem to state 10:00
(UTC/GMT+01:00) in both cases. Which is incorrect!
When: 2 August 2007 10:00-11:00 (GMT+01:00) Amsterdam, Berlin, Bern, Rome, Stockholm, Vienna.
Where: Conference room 2184

The incorrect calendar messages is not directly visible if the receiver is
using Outlook, since both sending and receiving Outlook Calendars are
interpreting the incorrect message in the same way. But, the calendar message
is incorrectly interpreted by humans and possibly other calendar applications
when received as a normal eMail.

I've heard that Outlook will not change the local country UTC offset as such
during daylight saving time, but then the time ought to be changed instead!

If the (UTC/GMT+01:00) designation is going to be used during normal AND
summer (daylight saving time), then the 10:00 A.M. meeting during summer
ought to be expressed as 09:00 (UTC/GMT+01:00)! By changing the time
itself.

09:00 (UTC/GMT+01:00) is equal to 10:00 (UTC/GMT+02:00), but 10:00
(UTC/GMT+01:00) is obviously not the same during both normal and summer
time.

So, is this a problim within whole "my" calendar community or a general
problem?
Changing the Outlook Calendar client settings modifies the actual meeting
times in the client, but it doesn't change the incorrect calendar messages
sent between the clients.

/Ulf
 

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