[LEAPSECS] any other parties?

[Rob Seaman]

On Jul 9, 2012, at 8:13 AM, Warner Losh wrote:


> Except that isn't POSIX time_t compliant, alas.  That's the other variation I forgot, which is to use the "right" timezone files, which also have their own set of problems for long-running applications (a variation on getting the UTC leap second tables problem).  I've gone on at length in other forums why this is clever, but not a complete solution.


Why not share with this forum?  If it is incomplete, why not focus on what work remains to be completed?


> Also, a never ending stream of TAI seconds is easy to count, but hard to convert to UTC since you need a leap second table to do that.  This can present problems to applications that need to present a UTC time to the outside world that have been off for a while.  GPS can give you the current TAI time very quickly, but cannot give you the UTC time until it has downloaded the almanac (especially if the device has been off > 6 months).


Not entirely clear why we should limit ourselves to considering prior (and demonstrably wrong) software and engineering standards, protocols, and infrastructure as sacrosanct, while simultaneously pursuing a redefinition of UTC and complete undermining (failure guaranteed) of the meaning of "day" and "universal time".

For one thing, implementing new systems is more fun :-)

Rob