[LEAPSECS] 2007-12-31 23:59:60 Z (sic)

[John Cowan]

Steve Allen scripsit:


> In the case of TZ, there is no single authority other than, as is

> being posited in the Internet discussions of unique nomenclature for

> zones, IANA.


IANA is not an authority (google for "names are but names"), it's a
gatekeeper for a bulletin-board that prevents anyone from posting on it
who hasn't gone through a defined process.


> And in cases like that of Hugo Chavez with Venezuela last year, even

> the authority can be sorely confused.  Which is why non-repudiable *is*

> a good idea.


If the Government of Venezuela or any other country changes its mind
about what the time zone in that country is, no one else in the world
has a thing to say about it.  There is and can be no contract, and so
non-repudiation remains irrelevant.


> What would IANA have done in the case of Venezuela?

> Issue an update and then a week later issue another update?


Of course.  The Olsen TZ database is updated about 10 times a year because
of such governmental whims.

Civil time is the creation of civil authority, and has exactly as much
relationship to mean solar time (or universal time, for that matter)
as the civil authority thinks convenient.

-- 
You're a brave man! Go and break through the            John Cowan
lines, and remember while you're out there              cowan at ccil.org
risking life and limb through shot and shell,           http://ccil.org/~cowan
we'll be in here thinking what a sucker you are!
        --Rufus T. Firefly