[LEAPSECS] Java: ThreeTen/JSR-310

[Steve Allen]

On Fri 2011-01-28T08:55:34 -0700, Warner Losh hath writ:

> The larger point is that nobody implements this in the real world.

> UTC-SLS is largely just a paper standard that the vast majority of

> people completely ignore.  It seems unwise to code such a tenuous thing

> into the Java standard libraries.  Not only does UTC-SLS need to have

> better availability of the standard it is based on, it also needs to

> actually be implemented by people...


It is a given that the underlying POSIX time_t must be based on the
broadcast time signal standard of the ITU-R.  There are too many
systems which presume that the broadcast time will be used as the
underlying system time, but those systems do not care what the name.
of the broadcast standard is.

If the ITU-R abandons the name UTC and abandons the leap seconds
then the underlying time will be uniform in the way that POSIX
always has pretended it is.  UTC can become a time zone.
The zoneinfo file is a scheme which is already implemented by java.

It seems to me that a more productive avenue would be for the java
language implementors to formally consider how this notion would
affect things and produce a statement to be sent to the ITU-R
Radiocommunications Assembly for their consideration during the
vote on the proposed draft of TF.460

--
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