[LEAPSECS] happy anniversary pips

Harlan Stenn stenn at ntp.org
Wed Feb 12 15:50:14 EST 2014


Warner Losh writes:

>

> On Feb 12, 2014, at 7:53 AM, Harlan Stenn wrote:

>

>> Warner Losh writes:

>>>

>>> On Feb 12, 2014, at 5:36 AM, Greg Hennessy wrote:

>>>

>>>>

>>>>>> Um, that is false. All linux kernels did not crash, in fact NONE of

>>>>>> mine did.

>>>>>

>>>>> "all" here was an overstatement, but the impact of the leap second

>>>>> should never be "your kernel crashes" even if your personal kernels

>>>>> didn't.

>>>>

>>>> You should refrain from making inaccurate claims, it damages your

>>>> credibility.

>>>

>>> It still doesn't detract from my point: leap seconds caused aberrant

>>> behavior in the linux kernel that everybody wants to nit-pick me on,

>>> but the nit-picks don't detract from the point. The point is the

>>> aberrant behavior, rather than the slight mischaracterizations of

>>> that. Geeze, no wonder no progress can be made, people are arguing

>>> over the wrong things.

>>

>> Bad handling and inadequate testing of leap seconds in those kernels

>> (and was some of it libc?) caused the aberrant behavior.

>

> The linux kernel has been touted by some of its proponents as the most tested

> and verified kernel around. Some may quibble with this characterization, but

> if not the most, certainly one of the most. And even so, this problem with l

> eap seconds managed to escape into released kernels. If that happened, here,

> what hope is there for other, less well tested systems.


The conclusions I draw from the utter lack of any similar reports from
non-linux systems are:

- either those kernels/libraries did not do leap-second processing, or
- they did and their code worked

Do you have different conclusions?

H


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