[LEAPSECS] ACM article

[Poul-Henning Kamp]

In message <1D823D49-A362-4957-B1F8-8458A523A8C6 at noao.edu>, Rob Seaman writes:

>Hi Tom,

>

>> Help me out here. That ACM generated time-stamp in your posting; which is it by your definition: time-of-day or interval timekeeping?

>

>Universal time is time-of-day.  The current definition of UTC

>permits it to be used to recover an interval timescale.


I think your attempted distinction between UTCs role in these two
tasks is both bogus and disingenious.

The reason a switch was made from rubber-seconds to leap-seconds
was to make time intervals deterministic relative to non-astronomical
events and processes.

To claim 40 years later that timeintervals are merely a unintentional
sideeffect of the UTC definition, is a very tough row to hoe, and
you're not even close to making it.

-- 
Poul-Henning Kamp       | UNIX since Zilog Zeus 3.20
phk at FreeBSD.ORG         | TCP/IP since RFC 956
FreeBSD committer       | BSD since 4.3-tahoe    
Never attribute to malice what can adequately be explained by incompetence.