Re: F-ckin Leap Seconds, how do they work?

[Tyler Haske <tyler.haske () gmail com>]

On Tue, Jul 3, 2012 at 11:15 PM, George Herbert
<george.herbert () gmail com> wrote:
> It's not a butthead thing to do to assert that the Internet's
> stability in this matter now outweighs an arbitrary and abstract
> argument among timekeepers.  We matter more than they do, now.  If
> they want to keep a more true Solar Time they can do so; we can run on
> atomic and put this silly notion of trying to say Sun-centric behind
> us.  This is the 21st century.
>
> Leapsecondo Delenda Est!

I don't see why everyday computers, servers, and routers need the
functionality to add (or subtract) an arbitrary second once every 3 or
4 years. These things are supposed to be synced to a NTP source
anyway.

Easiest solution is just remove leap second functionality from
mainline code, and make it something you have to special-compile for.

The fact there is a 400 page book on the subject really makes me
wonder how well the average kernel hacker is doing the implementation.
(Oh wait, we saw EXACTLY how well it was done).

All this is a time bomb (lame I know) waiting to go off every few
years there is a leap second. We get to find out which servers are
running which out-of-date kernels that attempt to implement some
arcane time function practically no one cares about. (Sorry time
aficionados. I appreciate your work, but I'd rather just look it up
and not trust my computer to calculate it.)