On 2016-12-01 06:28 PM, Stephen Colebourne wrote:
On 1 December 2016 at 19:45, Brooks Harris <[email protected]> wrote:
As I read it I think Google's intention is to publish their method and
algorithm in the hopes others may follow it. It would be better if everybody
did it the same way, but it will remain to be seen if others will choose to
follow the example.
The page reads clearly enough to me that:
- Google will leap over 20 hours this time because it is too late to
change their plans
- They plan to leap over 24 hours next time to match Amazon and others
- The propose an informal "standard" of 24 hours leaps henceforth
If all the big IT players agree on a 24 hour leap, 12 hours either
side of midnight UTC, then we have all moved a step forward. Even more
so if they write up the approach as a formal standard.
That's all good, I think.
The next issue is that there are then two types of NTP server -
smeared and non-smeared - and no way to tell the difference. Call me
naive, but that seems like a perfectly soluble problem, either within
NTP or external to it.
One quick thought - the smeared NTP servers could be distinguished by
their DNS names, something along the lines of "time.smear20.google.com"
or "time.smear24.google.com?
For the record, I think that both leap-smeared and leap-accurate
broadcast time have value, but it should be easily possible to tell
which is being received. I also desperately want there to be a name
for the proposed informal standard, so we can all talk about it.
Hmmm. I agree, a name would be helpful.
"Smear" seems to have taken hold, if not technically exact, at least
intuitively descriptive. I don't know what a technically proper term for
that would be.
Above I implied names that signaled the smear's span - "smear20",
"smear24". There might be other characteristics to incorporate in a name?
-Brooks
Stephen
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