[LEAPSECS] Common Calendar Time (CCT) -Brooks Harris

[Joseph Gwinn]

On Mon, 20 Jan 2014 00:16:13 +0000 (UTC), Joseph S. Myers wrote:

> On Sun, 19 Jan 2014, Steve Allen wrote:

> 

>> On Sun 2014-01-19T07:39:51 +0000, Clive D.W. Feather hath writ:

>>> When I was on the ISO C (*NOT* "ANSI c") committee, we looked at 

>>> the issue.

>>> Then we asked the expert community (that is, you lot), to come up with a

>>> consensus proposal that we could look at. As far as I know, the committee

>>> is still waiting.

>> 

>> Where is the record of the communication?

>> To whom was it addressed and how was it sent?

>> If someone wants to contact the committee how should that be done?

> 

> sc22wg14 at open-std.org (emails from non-members of the list are moderated).

> 

> Note that:

> 

> * The ISO C standard is not currently being revised, and while it isn't 

> being revised it's not possible to vote things into a future revision 

> (beyond Technical Corrigenda in response to Defect Reports); you need to 

> wait for work to start on a new version.

> 

> * The other option for proposed ISO C features is a Technical 

> Specification, but there's a complicated process to start work on one, 

> involving several countries supporting a New Work Item Proposal.  You 

> won't get a TS started without several committee members interested in 

> working on it (and I haven't seen evidence of such interest in WG14).  And 

> then a TS does not form part of ISO C, unless the C standard is revised 

> and it's proposed and agreed to integrate the TS into it.  You can have a 

> study group, like the current one for parallel language extensions, 

> without going through that process, but you still need several committee 

> members interested.

> 

> (There may be other options available under ISO processes, e.g. a 

> normative amendment such as was done for C90 in 1994/1995.  I don't think 

> they are likely to be applied in this case; there's been a need lately in 

> SC22 to push back on a notion coming from (at least some bits of) 

> ISO/IEC/JTC1 that TCs should only be issued within two or three years of 

> standard publication and after that there should be a new edition.)

> 

> * Nothing happens in the C standard (when it *is* being revised) without a 

> WG14 paper proposing specific textual changes to be made to the standard.

> 

> * There has sometimes been a mood in WG14 not to standardize things 

> without existing implementation practice.  The extent to which that rule 

> is followed varies (it was stated at the start of C11 development, but 

> then major features went in without such implementation practice).  

> Similar views have sometimes been expressed in POSIX.

> 

> So, to improve ISO C standards for time and timezones and related issues 

> you need several interested committee members working on proposed 

> specifications, producing implementations of those specifications as 

> evidence of implementation practice (preferably) and attending meetings to 

> champion the proposals.

> 

> (I'm the Convenor of the UK C panel.)


My experience is with POSIX, where the story is similar but far less 
complicated.

In summary, my advice to the Time Folk is to thrash out a single 
proposal and present it to the committee one hopes to convince.

And the Time Folk should *not* try to sort out the politics and 
theology of timescales in a non-time working group, or to define the 
One True Clock (paralleled on 
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/True_Cross>).  This was tried in POSIX, 
devolving into a full-scale flamewar (resembling the current thread, 
but even louder), which led to the Time Folk being summarily ignored. 
It should be understood that while the committees want to do the right 
thing, they neither know nor much care about time, and will insist that 
their problems and stated requirements are addressed.

(I'm the Chair of the POSIX Committee, and their main time guy (the 
scars are healing nicely).)


Joe Gwinn