Dear Jim

> Man, are we ever getting close now!
I am sure that everyone else is quite tired of listening to us by now, if they
still are. :-)

> The gregorian_utc_lse case was my way of distinguishing the entirely
> approximate case of gregorian_nls from the case where you have a UTC
> reference timestamp that is firmly embedded in the real world, had input
> timestamps that were also UTC and firmly embedded in the real world, but
> used a mismatched algorithm when you created your elapsed times. (The
> algorithm was likely the POSIX/nls algorithm, but it could also have been
> the GPS algorithm, for example.) 
...
> This was my stab at an explicit declaration. As I mentioned, this case
> really isn't terribly far off from the gregorian_nls case. A misapplication
> of encoding algorithm has rendered the result (possibly) approximate, so
> with appropriate wording in the definition the gregorian_nls calendar would
> likely be enough.

OK, I see. The cases are materially the same, aren't they; the difference is
whether it's accidental or on purpose. If we can devise wording which covers
both cases at once, and call it gregorian_nls (which is simpler), I think that
would be preferable.

You suggested we might permit "gregorian" as a synonym for this, for backward
compatibility. If we do so, I think we should deprecate "gregorian", so the CF
checker gives a warning. Much earlier in this discussion, I proposed that we
should disallow any default or "standard". These would be backward-incompatible
changes, which I usually oppose! Maybe that is too severe, and we should retain
those possibilities as well as synonyms for gregorian_nls, but also deprecated.
But it would seem odd to have as default a calendar which isn't accurately the
real world and is not standard. Therefore I'm still inclined towards abolishing
them. What do you think?

Best wishes

Jonathan
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