Re: [LEAPSECS] Stupid question from programmer: Why not just eliminate ALL UTC corrections ?

From: Poul-Henning Kamp <phk_at_HAVEN.FREEBSD.DK>
Date: Fri, 05 Aug 2005 14:17:35 +0200

In message <E1E113q-0005Mf-00_at_mta1.cl.cam.ac.uk>, Markus Kuhn writes:
>Mark Calabretta wrote on 2005-08-05 07:53 UTC:
>> You are saying that POSIX time, unix system time, is UTC, right?
>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unix_time supports that but apparently
>> POSIX time keeping is a bit of a shambles - check Steve Allen's web page
>> http://www.ucolick.org/~sla/leapsecs/onlinebib.html or the man page for
>> time(2). (It also begs the question - why does unix maintain a table of
>> leap seconds?)
>
>POSIX timekeeping is not really "in shambles". The current phrasing of
>the standard was selected after long and careful deliberations on the
>difference between TAI and UTC. It reads:

Some of us call that "in shambles" Markus :-)

Also, your UTS proposal is a total non-starter: Rubber seconds is not
a usable solution.

--
Poul-Henning Kamp       | UNIX since Zilog Zeus 3.20
phk_at_FreeBSD.ORG         | TCP/IP since RFC 956
FreeBSD committer       | BSD since 4.3-tahoe
Never attribute to malice what can adequately be explained by incompetence.
Received on Fri Aug 05 2005 - 05:17:50 PDT

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