[LEAPSECS] Cost: getting rid of GMT & discontinuing leap seconds

Poul-Henning Kamp phk at phk.freebsd.dk
Sun Oct 24 14:12:34 EDT 2010


In message <1275094941-1287937815-cardhu_decombobulator_blackberry.rim.net-1452
353184- at bda950.bisx.prod.on.blackberry>, p at 2038bug.com writes:


>Examples of such programs with a material manifestation of a problem?


The CASIMO Flight Control software is a typical example: Every time
a leap second happens, the flight controllers are instructed to attain
a situation that does not require their existance around the leap second
and sit back and watch the fireworks.

Medicine production is another case: In continuous production
setups, all materials have to be traceable to with second granualirity
(FDA, EU and other regulations), which basically means that either
nothing happens over the leap second (ie: maintenance shutdown) or
everything in the factory has to cope correctly with leap seconds.

Fortunately, leap seconds happen in the middle of the night here in Denmark.

Poul-Henning

--
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.


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