On 19/05/15 05:39 PM, Joseph M Gwinn wrote: >> From: "Poul-Henning Kamp" <[email protected]> >> To: Leap Second Discussion List <[email protected]>, Hal >> Murray <[email protected]> >> Date: 05/19/2015 02:22 PM >> Subject: Re: [LEAPSECS] Look Before You Leap ? The Coming Leap >> Second and AWS | Hacker News >> Sent by: "LEAPSECS" <[email protected]> >> >> -------- >> In message >> <[email protected]>, Hal >> Murray writes: >> >>> I think the problem is conflicting standards. POSIX doesn't agree with > UTC. >> >> Not so much "doesn't agree" as "ignores". > > No, it's Doesn't Agree - the issue was very much debated. > > True UTC (with leap seconds) didn't cure a problem the committee cared > about, and managed to cause problems they did care about. In short, POSIX > systems have to be able to work in a cave, with no access to the sky or > knowledge of astronomy.
If POSIX time_t were actually a count of SI seconds elapsed since the epoch, then a machine in a cave (with an accurate enough clock) could in principle maintain correct timestamps. As it stands though, POSIX time_t cannot be implemented without access to a UTC reference of some kind, i.e. access to the sky. Regards, Eric Smith _______________________________________________ LEAPSECS mailing list [email protected] https://pairlist6.pair.net/mailman/listinfo/leapsecs
