[LEAPSECS] private smear goes public

[Stephen Colebourne]

On 1 December 2016 at 19:45, Brooks Harris <brooks at edlmax.com> wrote:
> As I read it I think Google's intention is to publish their method and
> algorithm in the hopes others may follow it. It would be better if everybody
> did it the same way, but it will remain to be seen if others will choose to
> follow the example.

The page reads clearly enough to me that:

- Google will leap over 20 hours this time because it is too late to
change their plans
- They plan to leap over 24 hours next time to match Amazon and others
- The propose an informal "standard" of 24 hours leaps henceforth

If all the big IT players agree on a 24 hour leap, 12 hours either
side of midnight UTC, then we have all moved a step forward. Even more
so if they write up the approach as a formal standard.

The next issue is that there are then two types of NTP server -
smeared and non-smeared - and no way to tell the difference. Call me
naive, but that seems like a perfectly soluble problem, either within
NTP or external to it.

For the record, I think that both leap-smeared and leap-accurate
broadcast time have value, but it should be easily possible to tell
which is being received. I also desperately want there to be a name
for the proposed informal standard, so we can all talk about it.

Stephen