[LEAPSECS] Schedule for success

[Rob Seaman]

Steve Allen wrote:


> We have seen that the international timekeepers of the BIPM get livid

> when someone suggests that GPS time could be used in an official  

> sense.

> The IERS seems to be a bit more mellow.


Does anybody have insight into what the real issue is with simply  
adopting GPS time?  It has long seemed that UTC is simply caught in a  
crossfire between two factions of the precision timekeeping community.

If the ITU position were simply to stop distributing UTC and to start  
distributing GPS (or some TI = GPS offset to avoid a jump), this whole  
debate we are having would simply go away.  We'd work around the new  
standard.  Whether or not standard time would end up layered on UTC/ 
GMT or on GPS/TI would make for an entertaining discussion, but it  
would be a very different discussion.

Rather, the ITU is seeking to redefine UTC, and apparently GMT,  
perhaps just as some gambit in a funding war or academic dispute.

What's wrong with GPS?  Astronomers use it all the time, very  
productively.

Rob