[LEAPSECS] POSIX and C (Was: Re: ISO Influence)

[Steve Allen]

On Wed 2010-12-22T18:46:56 +0000, Poul-Henning Kamp hath writ:

> Broadcast time *IS* civil time, it is broadcast as a service to civilians.

>

> Take Germanys DCF77 as example:

>

> DCF77 is the official legal time of Germany[1].


By transmitting timestamps which are not UTC DCF77 is not in
conformance with ITU-R TF.460.

In constrast, WWV and WWVB do transmit UTC, but nowhere in
any US jurisdiction is that the legal civil time.

And POSIX chooses not to conform with ITU-R TF.460.

So the rules are subject to arbitrary interpretation by sovereign
entities in order to serve their own historical/legal/practical
purposes.  There is no evident international authority to which
computer implementations can conform without risk of flame war.
Anybody can defensibly claim justification for doing anything they want.

--
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