[tz] leap_second.list not updated after latest IERS Bulletin C

[Brooks Harris]

On 12/9/2023 3:47 PM, Brian Inglis via tz wrote:
> On 2023-12-08 15:04, Brooks Harris via tz wrote:
>> On 12/8/2023 3:58 PM, Paul Eggert wrote:
>>> On 2023-12-08 11:58, Brooks Harris via tz wrote:
>>>> anything from IERS must be public domain, isn't it? How is it not?
>>>
>>> It’s published in France and French law does not recognize the US 
>>> notion of public domain. The French “domaine public” is more 
>>> restrictive than the US notion, and as I understand things if 
>>> published in France the file cannot be domaine public anyway; that 
>>> can happen only 70 years after publication.
>>>
>>> The IERS version lacks a copyright notice, and it’s not clear who 
>>> holds the copyright or under what terms TZDB could legally reproduce 
>>> the file. The copyright holder might be the IERS, the Paris 
>>> Observatory, Paris Sciences et Lettres University, the Ministry of 
>>> National Education, or some other body. A while ago I asked for a 
>>> proper copyright notice to be added, to clarify rights and establish 
>>> permissions, but this has not gotten anywhere presumably because the 
>>> people in charge of the IERS version are busy and don’t think this 
>>> is important.
>>>
>>> Given the legal uncertainty it’s safer for TZDB to not copy the IERS 
>>> version.
>> Thanks.
>>
>> As far as I can tell there is no "leap-seconds.list" file at IERS. 
>> This NIST file appears to be a reconstruction of the IERS leap-second 
>> data, either assembled from Bulletin C, or transposed from the 
>> "Leap_Second_History.dat" file at 
>> https://hpiers.obspm.fr/eoppc/bul/bulc/Leap_Second_History.dat.
>
> On most leap seconds sites, leap-seconds.list is usually a symlink to 
> leap-seconds.NTPTIME, where NTPTIME is usually the integer NTP time 
> stamp at 0Z on the date of the most recent bulletin C, or the local 
> issue date e.g.
>
> $ curl ftp://hpiers.obspm.fr/iers/bul/bulc/ntp/
> -rw-rw-r--    1 ftp      ftp           540 Jul 06  2016 README
> -rw-rw-r--    1 ftp      ftp          4928 Apr 03  2015 
> leap-seconds.3637008000
> -rw-rw-r--    1 ftp      ftp          4928 Jul 07  2015 
> leap-seconds.3645216000
> -rw-rw-r--    1 ftp      ftp          4927 Sep 16  2015 
> leap-seconds.3651350400
> -rw-rw-r--    1 ftp      ftp          4928 Jan 11  2016 
> leap-seconds.3661459200
> -rw-rw-r--    1 ftp      ftp          4928 Jan 13  2016 
> leap-seconds.3661632000
> -rw-rw-r--    1 ftp      ftp          4920 Jul 06  2016 
> leap-seconds.3676752000
> -rw-rw-r--    1 ftp      ftp          4925 Jan 19  2017 
> leap-seconds.3693772800
> -rw-r--r--    1 ftp      ftp          4921 Jul 07  2017 
> leap-seconds.3708374400
> -rw-r--r--    1 ftp      ftp          4923 Jan 09  2018 
> leap-seconds.3724483581
> -rw-r--r--    1 ftp      ftp          4921 Jul 05  2018 
> leap-seconds.3739787886
> -rw-r--r--    1 ftp      ftp          4949 Jul 04  2019 
> leap-seconds.3771235866
> -rw-r--r--    1 ftp      ftp          4953 Jan 07  2020 
> leap-seconds.3787382231
> -rw-r--r--    1 ftp      ftp          4949 Jul 07  2020 
> leap-seconds.3803144275
> -rw-r--r--    1 ftp      ftp          4953 Jan 07  2021 
> leap-seconds.3819011916
> -rw-r--r--    1 ftp      ftp          4949 Jul 05  2021 
> leap-seconds.3834432000
> -rw-r--r--    1 ftp      ftp          4953 Jan 05  2022 
> leap-seconds.3850377469
> -rw-r--r--    1 ftp      ftp          4949 Jul 05  2022 
> leap-seconds.3865995417
> -rw-r--r--    1 ftp      ftp          4953 Jan 09  2023 
> leap-seconds.3882249427
> -rw-r--r--    1 ftp      ftp          4949 Jul 04 13:06 
> leap-seconds.3897417600
> lrwxrwxrwx    1 ftp      ftp            23 Jul 04 13:06 
> leap-seconds.list -> leap-seconds.3897417600
> drwxr-xr-x    2 ftp      ftp          4096 Apr 03  2015 sources
>
> Also
>     https://hpiers.obspm.fr/iers/bul/bulc/ntp/?C=M;O=D
>
> and the other Bulletin C data:
>
>     https://hpiers.obspm.fr/iers/bul/bulc/?C=M;O=D
>
>> The NIST file does not appear to explicitly say its in the "public 
>> domain". But, as I understand it, anything NIST says, does, or 
>> publishes is in "public domain" as far as USA law goes. Hopefully 
>> this just remains a matter of my inexpert curiosity.
>
> Other referring documents remind users that most documents and data on 
> sites are in the public domain in the US:
>
> https://www.nist.gov/open/copyright-fair-use-and-licensing-statements-srd-data-software-and-technical-series-publications 
>
>
Thanks for this link. That answers a lot of my questions.

By the way, notice the "Standards" icon at bottom of that page. It leads 
to really good explanations of NIST standards topics, including:
UTC(NIST) Time Scale
https://www.nist.gov/pml/time-and-frequency-division/time-realization/utcnist-time-scale-0