[LEAPSECS] presentations from AAS Future of Time sessions

[Magnus Danielson]

On 12/01/14 11:58, Poul-Henning Kamp wrote:

> In message <52D257B6.6090900 at edlmax.com>, Brooks Harris writes:

>

>>> But time_t has always been UTC, because it was meant to be UTC.

>>

>> Oh, I see what you're saying. Of course - UTC in the historical non-Leap

>> Second period existed, and they intended time_t to reflect it.

>

> Nice try to twist things to your own viewpoint, but you are wrong.

>

> They meant UTC to be UTC.

>

> They had absolutely no opinion on leapseconds.

>

> Leapseconds, UT, UT1, UT2 or for that matter astronomers or their

> opinions about time, played absolutely no role in the decision

> making process.

>

> Bell Labs were a telco-sidekick and the telco business used UTC

> to isolate local timezones and DST issues to a presentation issue.


That degree of time focus in the telco busniess came much later.


> Do I need to remind you that it was telcos caused UTC to be CCITT

> business in the first place ?


CCIR actually. It was only later that CCIR and CCITT merged into ITU and 
then their ITU-R and ITU-T divisions reflect the old CCIR and CCITT 
organisations. To some degree the difference still exists.


> Appearantly the only computing person outside timelabs who cared

> about leapseconds prior to 1985 was Dave Mills.


I think this is much closer to the truth. Yes, they intended it to be 
UTC, but just didn't know how it was defined. Back in those ages you 
needed to know where the definition was and get that standard. It was 
not just pulling the PDF of the web as it is today. Some things have 
improved. Dave Mills being an academic did the homework so he learned 
about it earlier.

Cheers,
Magnus