[LEAPSECS] RFC 1818, BCP for Time Scales

Steve Allen sla at ucolick.org
Thu Apr 8 00:56:40 EDT 2010


Last month we had some Zen exchanges about time scales.
This list exists because of repeated statements against
"proliferation of time scales".
Perl 6 is currently building its basis for time as TAI even though
there is no chance that the implementation can conformk to what the
BIPM means by TAI.

Engineers designing and building systems and bureaucrats who are
specifying them do not have the patience to decode Zen koans.
In the absence of clear direction there is little basis for
objecting to the resulting chaos.

IMHO what is missing is the equivalent of an IETF Best Current
Practices document about time scales and their use by hardware
and software systems.
http://www.rfc-editor.org/in-notes/rfc1818.txt

What I would like to see is for the BIPM/CCTF and IAU Comm 31 to
coordinate an effort and pick somebody to produce a BCP for the IETF
on the subject of time scales. What sorts of things SHOULD be done?
What sorts of things MUST be done? What are the NOTs?

--
Steve Allen <sla at ucolick.org> WGS-84 (GPS)
UCO/Lick Observatory Natural Sciences II, Room 165 Lat +36.99855
University of California Voice: +1 831 459 3046 Lng -122.06015
Santa Cruz, CA 95064 http://www.ucolick.org/~sla/ Hgt +250 m


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