On Wed, 27 Jul 2022 20:49:25 -0400, Gabe Goldberg wrote: >For decades, we've used leap seconds to keep our computers in sync with >Earth's rotation time. Now, Meta and many others argue that new leap >seconds are more trouble than they're worth. > There are three desiderata:
o Close approximation to Mean Solar Time o Atomic frequency acciracy o Continuity (no jumps) Pick two. TAI has frequency accuracy and continuity. UTC approximates solar time with frequency accuracy. UT1 approximates solar time with continuity. In hindsight, UT1 might have been a better IT convention than UTC. We can eschew leap seconds until the error accumulates to the greater part of one hour, then either: o All move logically one timezone west or: o Skip one year's Spring DST change. >In her hit song, Cher sang, "If I could turn back time ><https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9n3A_-HRFfc>." For her, that would be a >good thing. But in the computing world, Meta, formerly Facebook, >believes it would be a very bad thing indeed. In fact, Meta wants to get >rid of leap seconds ><https://engineering.fb.com/2022/07/25/production-engineering/its-time-to-leave-the-leap-second-in-the-past/>, >which keep computing time in sync with Earth's rotational time. > >Meta's not the only one that feels that way. The US National Institute >of Standards and Technology (NIST), its French equivalent (the Bureau >International de Poids et Mesures or BIPM), Amazon, Google, and >Microsoft all want to put an end to leap seconds. > >Why? As Meta explained in a blog post ><https://engineering.fb.com/2022/07/25/production-engineering/its-time-to-leave-the-leap-second-in-the-past/>, >"We bump into problems whenever a leap second is introduced. And because >it's such a rare event, it devastates the community every time it >happens. With a growing demand for clock precision across all >industries, the leap second is now causing more damage than good, >resulting in disturbances and outages." > >Therefore, Meta concludes, we should simply "stop the future >introduction of leap seconds." > >https://www.zdnet.com/home-and-office/networking/tech-giants-want-to-put-an-end-to-leap-seconds/ -- gil ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [email protected] with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
