> On Feb 15, 2016, at 12:49 PM, Steve Allen <sla@ucolick.org> wrote:
>
> On Mon 2016-02-15T12:14:52 -0500, Tim Parenti hath writ:
>> I prepared the attached patch which uses the file from IERS shortly
>> after the 2016-01-11 announcement, but was sitting on it while we
>> waited for NIST, since the conversation at the time seemed to indicate
>> that NIST was our preferred source. I think, though, that since IERS
>> actually decides the leap seconds and seems to be updating their file
>> more promptly, it might be worthwhile to consider switching to IERS as
>> our canonical source for this file.
>
> That makes sense. Announcing the leap seconds is part of the charter
> of the IERS, and staff there are on public record as having interest
> in disseminating the information. It is not part of the charter of
> NIST, and staff there are on public record as not wanting leap seconds
> to exist.
I'll second that. And even if it were part of the NIST charter, NIST would only be a secondary source, not the primary source. IERS is the originator of the data; why use a middleman?
If we currently have anything saying that we use any source other than IERS as the supplier of leap second data, we should fix that.
paul