[LEAPSECS] The ends we seek

[Rob Seaman]

Dennis Ferguson wrote:


> I hence believe that time interval applications and applications which need UTC have fundamentally incompatible requirements (in real life, if not in theory)


As has been said here many times they are two different kinds of timekeeping, in theory as well as in real life.  The ITU pretending otherwise won't change that.


> I think the fact is that if you want to run pure POSIX applications on your system reliably you will dump the time synchronization software, set the system clock to your wrist watch at boot time and then let the system clock free run on its local oscillator until you reboot it, since that is the only thing which POSIX defines support for.



"Pure POSIX" is an oxymoron of cosmic proportions - and the word POSIX appears nowhere in the "Draft Revision to ITU-R Recommendation TF.460-6".

Rob Seaman
NOAO
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The means we use must be as pure as the ends we seek - Martin Luther King