[LEAPSECS] Leap seconds ain't broken

[Steve Summit]

Warner Losh wrote:
> That rather sums up the situation today with software. We have a
> specific legacy standard called POSIX that's causing all kinds of
> issues that pop up when you least expect it (taking out DNS server,
> that's impressive), but there's no heir apparent to the standard,
> and no history of willingness to change the standard to allow it
> to properly model the current reality. [... So] the bits of
> software that work right on purpose are rather the rare exception
> than the rule. The rest of the 'fleet' of software applications
> may or may not handle the leap second correctly, which may in
> turn cause problems great or small (or no problems at all).

Can't argue with any of that.

What I'm wondering is whether there's any real expectation that
this situation can be resolved in any meaningful way.  There
doesn't seem to be that much interest in additional software
changes (beyond the rather wobbly status quo) for handling leap
seconds better.  It almost seems like we're just waiting around
for the ITU to abolish them (in 2023?) and finally put us out of
our misery.  In the meantime Google has come to the rescue with
its smeared public NTP servers which will let us more perfectly
ignore the leap seconds 'til then.

(Yes, of course there are a still few people who are variously
lobbying or coding fervently for the retention of leap seconds.
Don't worry, I'm with you.)