[LEAPSECS] Trying a different angle

[Magnus Danielson]

From: "Poul-Henning Kamp" <phk at phk.freebsd.dk>
Subject: Re: [LEAPSECS] Trying a different angle
Date: Thu, 14 Feb 2008 14:04:08 +0000
Message-ID: <24946.1202997848 at critter.freebsd.dk>


> In message <B71407E5-59C8-455A-94F6-61385D98E0EB at noao.edu>, Rob Seaman writes:

> >> civil danish time was fixes as "the mean solar time at 15 east long."

> 

> >The interpretation of your civil servant that NTP  

> >is disallowed sounds bogus to me since the transport mechanism for  

> >realizing the law(s) is (wisely) left as a matter of interpretation.

> 

> Ahh, but NTP isn't just a mechanism, it mandates UTC timestamps,

> and thus it would be counter to Danish law.

> 

> And nobody can appearantly be bothered to change the shortest,

> simplest and most incorrect law we have on the books in Denmark:

> 

> 	https://www.retsinformation.dk/Forms/R0710.aspx?id=83966

> 

> (The first 3 lines is the title of the King at the time :-)


Actually, only the first 1.5 lines or so...

It is a very simple law, clearly stateing that throughout all of Denmark shall
the time be the mean solar time at 15 degree longitude east of Greenwich.

This translates to UT1+1h in modern times.

This law is now 114 years old. But it seems that the Danish parlament still has
very high respect for Christian the ninth, in Gods grace King of Denmark,
Venders and Goters, Count of Slesvig, Holstein, Stormarn, Ditmarsken, Lauenborg
and Oldenborg. But I am sure the Queen of Denmark (current ruling royalty)
could be convinced it is not a great offence to change the law now.

An alternative is naturally to use NTP servers providing UT1 time, so that it
can be used for legal timing.

However, the international committments that Denmark has comitted to, will
eventually force Denmark to acknowledge UTC rather than UT1 as the basis for
their timekeeping.

The current situation is kind of stable, as long as nobody require precission
below 1 second. The stop of inserting leap seconds into UTC will cause the
UTC-UT1 difference to go beyond one second and all of a sudden a lot of uses
will very obviously break the law rater than being a implementational curiosity
as it is today.

Cheers,
Magnus