[LEAPSECS] Trying a different angle

[Poul-Henning Kamp]

In message <C96B533D-0B6E-4FEB-BD41-9C7BE493EDDD at noao.edu>, Rob Seaman writes:

>Q: What do GPS and TI (as described in Torino and by Steve) have in  

>common?

>A: They are both timescales without leap seconds.

>

>Q: And?

>A: ...and no astronomers are complaining about them.

>

>Q: Why not?

A: because they would not solve the problem the computer people face.

GPS and TI would both have to go through several hundreds of parliaments
before computers could avoid dealing with leap-seconds.

During the timeperiod where this takes place, neighboring countries
would face differences in legal time of up to 30 seconds, if previous
changes to time and calendar is any guide.  One of the worst cases
is the Danish parliament which has still not gotten around to adobt
UTC, despite the fact that we actually use it.

To achive the desired effect, it has to be UTC.

-- 
Poul-Henning Kamp       | UNIX since Zilog Zeus 3.20
phk at FreeBSD.ORG         | TCP/IP since RFC 956
FreeBSD committer       | BSD since 4.3-tahoe    
Never attribute to malice what can adequately be explained by incompetence.