Comment 11 for bug 14241

hwclock with no options defaults to whichever of --utc or --localtime was most
recently used to set the hardware clock.

Since "hwclock" and "hwclock --utc" both show the same result, it is Ubuntu that
assumes the hardware clock is in UTC when (presumably) using hwclock to
synchronise the hardware clock to the software clock when the clock is changed.

For a permanent desktop installation, this is tolerable as it can be corrected
once and it will remain so. On a live CD, it is not desireable. In either
scenario, blindly assuming UTC is inappropriate when it can be set at install time.