[LEAPSECS] Coming of age in the solar system

[Paul Sheer]

On Sat, 2010-09-04 at 07:59 -0600, M. Warner Losh wrote:

> In message: <060DD241-6C0D-4A8E-8E12-42C5FE198361 at batten.eu.org>

>             Ian Batten <igb at batten.eu.org> writes:

> : >   Of course, by

> : > saying that, you still have the problem.  NTP doesn't solve the leap

> : > second problem: you still have weird stuff that happens at the leap

> : > second.

> : 

> : But no-one, for an engineering value of no-one, cares.  Once every few

> : years, hourly statistics will be off by 0.03%.  Where's the pressure

> : coming from to claim this is an issue?

> 

> That's rather my point: NTP doesn't get things right, and there's an

> attitude that it doesn't matter since things are mostly papered over.

> Even without NTP things are mostly right, but nobody cares enough to

> get it right.  So almost nothing gets leap seconds right, and we're

> left with a lot of warts in the system because of it.

> 

> It is because of the 'good enough' attitude that doing any better is

> almost impossible for those applications that do care.

> 



Well...

I also thought it was a huge problem.

So I took to a casual strolling down the hall to our support team,
and did thusly spake: "Hay righteous $upport dudes: do you know
about this here leap second thing?"

And they did sayeth: "yep"

And I did spake: "Isn't it, like, a huuuuge problem for our
customers?"

And they said: "you mean the 150 telecoms operators that service
over half a billion subscribers betwixt them?"

Me: "yeah those!"

And they said: "no"

And I did retort: "has it ever been a problem, or have you ever
had a customer effected by leap seconds?"

And they said: "no"

Me: "and what other vendors have you all worked at in the course
of your esteemed careers in the telecoms industry?"

Support team replied with the names of all the large vendors
of telecoms equipment.

Me: "and has it ever been a problem for anyone ever?"

And they said: "no"

And that was the end of the discussion.

-paul