[LEAPSECS] the inescapability of feedback

[John E Hein]

Rob Seaman wrote at 00:55 -0700 on Mar 31, 2008:
 > John Hein wrote:
 > > For those applications that do care about local time, there are  
 > > other forums for discussing this class of problem.  It's certainly a  
 > > real issue for some, but is separable from the issues associated  
 > > with leap seconds.
 > 
 > It is precisely that UTC is kept stationary with respect to mean solar  
 > time that permits local timezone issues like DST to be separable from  
 > UTC as you describe.

The issues are separable for more pragmatic reasons than that, or at
least that's the effect I was describing.  If UTC no longer has leap
seconds or the computers use Steve's TI or similar, and time zones
gradually drift around the earth over the centuries relative to that
timescale, the issues will still be practically separable.  The class
of applications that don't care about local time still won't.  The
class of applications that do care about local time still will have
the same problems to contend with.