[LEAPSECS] A new use for Pre-1972 UTC

[Poul-Henning Kamp]

In message <B0E6460C-808B-4EB4-ADB7-6FA0BB5A1765 at noao.edu>, Rob Seaman writes:


>What exactly  

>is the use case they are trying to satisfy?  That said, I'm with  

>Tony.  This seems like what ISO 8601 was designed for.


They are trying to make a unique pseudo-random number, not a timestamp.

To decrease the probability of two persons or programs choosing the
same number, then include a timestamp in it.

time_t values are readily available in all POSIX filesystems,
so they use that.

This is a variant of the UUID madness that somebody came up with
because they didn't want to run a registry or use the existing
well-structured process (ISO OID's) and though that the eventual
collisions "probably doesn't matter much".

Poul-Henning

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