[LEAPSECS] Following an open source process

[Rob Seaman]

Poul-Henning Kamp wrote:


> I don't really care what your definition of "is" is,


No, but Tom apparently does.  (See next reply.)


> The civil day starts and stops whenever the most powerful civil

> authorities for a given locality decide it should do so.


"Civil day" - singular - certainly cannot mean "multitudinous local timekeeping rules".  Rather, the local clocks however offset via their embedded timezones share the synodic day as their natural 24 hour period.  The ITU might vote to pretend a different length of day, but that doesn't make it so.


> Your sophistry is not going to change that, so please spare us this

> pointless noise.


How about a definition for "Orwellian"?

Astronomers will feel the pain of this drastic redefinition of UTC now.  Others later.  Having chosen a secular cheat does not reduce the ITU's requirements for a coherent planning process - it increases those requirements.  If the ITU wants to pretend that the two clocks UTC and TAI can be replaced by a single clock (UTC's name, TAI's nature), they need to consider the contingent implications.  If they succeed in ignoring their responsibilities, the issues don't go away, they blow up in other people's faces.

Rob