IERS ponders reverse leapsecond...

Tue Aug 9 02:41:49 UTC 2022

I've been thinking about this problem for several decades.

I believe I have a Good solution to it.  It's the General Timestamp API 
effort at Network Time Foundation.

If you have been paying any attention, you will immediately realize that 
the effort is stalled because of a lack of funding.

I'm hesitant to say more, as there are some other groups with partial 
solutions who think they have the complete solution; and since these 
groups are much better funded, they are happy to forge ahead based on 
their view of the world.

I will say that the GTSAPI is designed around a "robust mechanism" that 
can implement every "local policy choice" I have seen around "how do we 
want to deal with 'time'?"

It addresses using timestamps beyond the execution of the current boot 
of the local system, and includes conversions between different versions 
of different timescales, and a library for arithmetic and comparison 
functions.

H

On 8/3/2022 8:33 AM, Matthew Huff wrote:
> True,
> 
> But it's hard enough to get developers to understand the need to code for 61 seconds in a minute, and now they would need to code for 59 seconds as well.
> 
> If time systems simply skewed the time so that 60 seconds actually just took 61 seconds or 59 seconds, there would be other issues, but coders wouldn't be involved.
> 
> 
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: NANOG <nanog-bounces+mhuff=ox.com at nanog.org> On Behalf Of Stephane Bortzmeyer
> Sent: Wednesday, August 3, 2022 11:19 AM
> To: Jay Ashworth <jra at baylink.com>
> Cc: nanog at nanog.org
> Subject: Re: IERS ponders reverse leapsecond...
> 
> On Wed, Aug 03, 2022 at 11:09:25AM -0400,  Jay Ashworth <jra at baylink.com> wrote  a message of 32 lines which said:
> 
>> General press loses its *mind*:
> 
> Indeed, they seem not to know what they write about. "atomic time – the universal way time is measured on Earth – may have to change" They don't even know the difference between TAI and UTC.
> 

-- 
Harlan Stenn <stenn at nwtime.org>
http://networktimefoundation.org - be a member!