[LEAPSECS] WRC-15 press release

[Ian Batten]

I was talking about this to a colleague, and they pointed out an obvious point that perhaps those of us who follow these things might miss.

Between now and 2023 there will be at least two leap seconds, to a high degree of probability.  With there now being a lot of focus on leap seconds and their effect on computer systems, on the first such leap society as a whole will be able to gauge the scale of the problem.  And as there is certainty of at least one further leap, people affected by those problems (which personally I hold to be wildly over-stated, but I am willing to be convinced) will have every reason to fix them.  So come 2023, the discussion will be largely about problems which arose and were fixed, because anyone who says “we have this problem which we have decided not to fix” is admitting that either the problem is not serious or they are not sufficiently bothered by it to fix it.  

So in 2023, there will not be a list of open, unfixed issues to motivate change, because everything will either be fixed or deemed trivial (fsvo trivial). But there will still an unbounded, uncollected list of unaddressed issues surrounding cessation of leapseconds.  That’s because it’s entirely reasonable in 2015 to develop systems assuming |ut1-utc|<0.9, and no reason at all to alter systems with that assumption.

ian

> On 19 Nov 2015, at 15:58, Kevin Birth <Kevin.Birth at qc.cuny.edu> wrote:
> 
> Predictable.
> 
> 
> 
> On 11/19/15, 9:49 AM, "LEAPSECS on behalf of Steve Allen"
> <leapsecs-bounces at leapsecond.com on behalf of sla at ucolick.org> wrote:
> 
>> The news is official.  Leaps until 2023, and more studies.
>> 
>> https://www.itu.int/net/pressoffice/press_releases/2015/53.aspx
>> 
>> --
>> Steve Allen                 <sla at ucolick.org>               WGS-84 (GPS)
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