leap seconds [forwarded with permission from wollman at uvm-gen.emba.uvm.edu]

wollman at uvm-gen.EMBA.UVM.EDU wollman at uvm-gen.EMBA.UVM.EDU
Mon Feb 7 22:23:21 UTC 1994


<<On 7 Feb 1994 13:49:18 -0800, eggert at twinsun.com (Paul Eggert) said:

> 	B.  Invent some leap seconds for the period between 1970 and
> 	1972, as if UTC had been in effect then.  This lies about UTC
> 	but repairs the 2 or 3 s error.  The conversion correction
> 	would be correspondingly reduced, to 7 or 8 s.

This is the preferred solution for our (FreeBSD) users, I think.
Currently, we have a situation where there is a 17-second discrepancy
between the time as displayed certain other NTP-running systems, as
compared to ours, which quantity really doesn't suggest anything to
someone trying to figure out what's going on.  If we can arrange
things so that the discrepancy works out ot be exactly |TAI-UTC|, then
time-savvy users can then say, ``Oh!  Obviously, (system X) doesn't
handle leap seconds!'' and then stop sending in bug reports about it.

Then all I have to do is figure out what NTP expects the kernel time to do
around leap seconds, and we should be set!

-GAWollman

--
Garrett A. Wollman   | Shashish is simple, it's discreet, it's brief. ... 
wollman at emba.uvm.edu | Shashish is the bonding of hearts in spite of distance.
 NB: Address soon to | It is a bond more powerful than absence.  We like people
 be changed.         | who like Shashish.  - Claude McKenzie + Florent Vollant



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