On Sun, 30 Oct 2022 07:08:25 +0000, Poul-Henning Kamp wrote: > -------- > Warner Losh writes: > >> The problem is time_t can't encode a leap second uniquely, but leap seconds >> had been a thing for ~20 years when the first POSIX standards came out. It >> was more of a willful choice to disregard them entirely as a simplification >> than lack of clairvoyance. > > I would say it is even worse: > > POSIX was simply an administrative exercise to rapidly rubber-stamp > the AT&T manuals to define a common baseline "before UNIX fragmented". > > The "technical review" of POSIX amounted to "The seven dwarfs" comparing > it to their own manuals, to ensure that their "me-too" UNIX could be made > compliant with minimal effort. > > Even if it had been a very convincing proposal, any change as > fundamental as time_t, be it leap-seconds or 64 bits, would have > been instantly shot down, entirely on the grounds that "The seven > dwarfs" didn't have the in-house UNIX-skill to implement the change.
Not exactly. I laid the history out in the "[time-nuts] Leap seconds and POSIX" thread circa 2009, which I won't recite here - see for instance <https://febo.com/pipermail/time-nuts/2009-January/035661.html>. The other ting to keep in mind is the immense existing codebase of unix kernels et al, not to mention application code depending on those kernels. Joe Gwinn _______________________________________________ LEAPSECS mailing list LEAPSECS@leapsecond.com https://pairlist6.pair.net/mailman/listinfo/leapsecs
