[LEAPSECS] The relation between calendars and leap seconds.

[Poul-Henning Kamp]

In message <9EE85ED8-DCC8-4299-BF59-E1E322D8D1CC at noao.edu>, Rob Seaman writes:


>Poul-Henning Kamp wrote:

>

>> And illegal on many systems, including all USGOV owned and operated  

>> systems.

>

>I thought the ITU had treaty status, therefore that they could decree  

>that we all must henceforth wear Goofy watches that run CCW, and that  

>this sober determination would supersede all other laws of God and man.


No, ITU does not have treaty status, you are supposed to follow their
recommedations and standards, unless there is specific national
regulation.

FIPS-151-2 overrides both STD-C and POSIX for instance.


>Also, is it truly illegal for computers to keep time two different  

>ways?


FIPS-151-2 compliant systems would be noncompliant if they did.


>After all, nobody really promulgates UTC even now - rather,  

>various messages are passed using other protocols such as NTP  

>resulting in a separate timescale realization on each computer.


Most people, and certainly NIST, view this as the local computer
"running UTC time", despite the fact that it does not run on the
"UTC timescale" in the strictly scientific meaning of the words.


>In general, any strong assertions about overriding legal entanglements  

>will tend to emphasize the importance of maintaining an unbroken chain  

>of historical precedent, ie., that UTC == GMT.


I thought USA went out of their way some years back, to make it
clear that the relevant secretary (of commerce ?) decided what
US timekeeping was and that it certainly had nothing to do with GMT ?

Or was that laying the ground for US unlateral action on leap-seconds ?

-- 
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.