The United States has planned a change to its DST (Daylight Saving Time) observance beginning in 2007. The Energy Policy Act of 2005 mandates that DST will start on the second Sunday in March and end on the first Sunday in November. In 2007, the start and stop dates will be March 11 and November 4, respectively. These dates are different from previous DST start and stop dates. In 2006, the dates were the first Sunday in April (April 2, 2006) and the last Sunday in October (October 29, 2006).

How will this affect JBoss users?

Broadly, there are two times when this change will affect you.

1.  Getting the current date/time - This is the responsibility of the operating system

2.  Comparing two date/time values - This is the responsibility of the JVM

Operating Systems:

Windows - http://www.microsoft.com/windows/timezone/dst2007.mspx

Linux   - http://kbase.redhat.com/faq/FAQ_80_7909.shtm

Solaris - http://sunsolve.sun.com/search/document.do?assetkey=1-26-102178-1

JVMs:

Sun     - http://java.sun.com/developer/technicalArticles/Intl/USDST/

JRockit - http://support.bea.com//support_news/Patch_for_2007_Daylight_Savings_Time_Changes.jsp

IBM     - http://www-1.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?rs=3068&context=SSNVBF&q1=DST+updates&uid=swg21250511

Note: The Sun and JRockit updates may break backward compatibility for the Eastern, Hawaiian, and Mountain time zones, under certain circumstances.  Both Sun and JRockit address resolutions to this bug in the links above.

Any user applications which use non-standard date/time packages should contact their vendors regarding this issue.