[LEAPSECS] Embedded software

[Warner Losh]

On Jan 19, 2014, at 2:12 PM, Hal Murray wrote:


>> The olson database updates will take care of that.

> 

> One of the problems with leap-seconds is that they aren't predictable and the 

> software in embedded gear doesn't get updated.  That also means the time zone 

> data doesn't get updated.

> 

> What sort of embedded gear uses time but not time zones?  Or are people 

> willing to gamble that Congress won't mess with DST anytime soon?


All the embedded gear I've done runs on UTC. But it also has requirements for 'cold start' that are incompatible with GPS and couldn't be met if the system had been off across a leap second.  It didn't deal with localtime, so DST insanity didn't matter so much...

Warner