> > > So all 4 dates correspond to the same date: the epoch, and this is > what the patch does: > > DateTime.strptime('0 +0100', '%s %z') == DateTime.strptime('0 +0000', > '%s %z') > => true > > Ruby does exactly that today. Are we actually having a conversation over DateTime.strptime('0 +0100', "%s %z").to_s => "1970-01-01T00:00:00+00:00" vs DateTime.strptime('0 +0100', "%s %z").to_s => "1970-01-01T01:00:00+01:00" ???? Because that's an extraordinary weird conversation to have as passionately as you appear to want to have this one.. DateTime.strptime('0 +0100', '%s %z') == DateTime.strptime('0 +0000', '%s %z') is already true So I'm wondering what else is left at this point? John