Tom Van Baak wrote:
I couldn't help noticing that Debian just issued an update
to tzone, so that means Linux systems now know about the
leap second.
-Chuck Harris
Hi Chuck,
"Linux systems now know about the leap second" -- this is a very
dangerous assumption. And one reason why leap seconds have gotten out
of hand the past decade.
Just because you observe one tz update from Debian does not imply
that all "Linux systems" on planet earth (or in space) magically know
about leap seconds. There must be millions (billions?) of embedded or
isolated systems -- from web servers to desktops to military systems
to gadgets to Raspberry Pi's to mobile phones, that have not, and
will not ever receive this update.
And that's where the new tzdist protocol comes into the game, which can
be used to supply leap second information to time *servers* which need
to send leap second warnings to their clients.
Systems which are simply time clients can receive the leap second
warning via the usual protocols like NTP or PTP/IEEE1588. Of cours it
must be sure that the information is also *evaluated* by the client
software.
Martin
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