[LEAPSECS] Short notice for DST changes

[Clive D.W. Feather]

Rob Seaman said:

> Chile's rules are familiar because many observatories are located in that timezone, but presumably the same shenanigans play out worldwide.  It is not obvious why a couple of weeks notice is acceptable for hour amplitude clock adjustments, but six months is not acceptable for leap seconds.


Leap seconds affect the base time that we're all working to. Summer time
changes only affect the presentation to one area, and the locals there will
know things get screwed up because of the short notice.


> While the talking point on this mailing list recently has been to hide the solar time requirement under the rug in the timezone system,


The proposal is to let local administrations worry about how far local time
is from 12:00 when the sun crosses the zenith. Then to have to reference
time - UTC - not be mixed radix.


> elsewhere they are still talking about accumulating the embargoed leap seconds into leap minutes.


Who is?


> Presumably the response will be that in each case the inevitable intercalary adjustments will have been rendered less frequent.  Less frequent but far more disruptive and chaotic, and in the mean time UTC would no longer function as Universal Time.


Who, apart from a few astronomers, actually needs a reference - as opposed
to local - time that is roughly synchronized with the sun rather than one
that is easy to work with?

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Clive D.W. Feather          | If you lie to the compiler,
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