<<On 7 Feb 1994 13:49:18 -0800, eggert@twinsun.com (Paul Eggert) said:
B. Invent some leap seconds for the period between 1970 and 1972, as if UTC had been in effect then. This lies about UTC but repairs the 2 or 3 s error. The conversion correction would be correspondingly reduced, to 7 or 8 s.
This is the preferred solution for our (FreeBSD) users, I think. Currently, we have a situation where there is a 17-second discrepancy between the time as displayed certain other NTP-running systems, as compared to ours, which quantity really doesn't suggest anything to someone trying to figure out what's going on. If we can arrange things so that the discrepancy works out ot be exactly |TAI-UTC|, then time-savvy users can then say, ``Oh! Obviously, (system X) doesn't handle leap seconds!'' and then stop sending in bug reports about it. Then all I have to do is figure out what NTP expects the kernel time to do around leap seconds, and we should be set! -GAWollman -- Garrett A. Wollman | Shashish is simple, it's discreet, it's brief. ... wollman@emba.uvm.edu | Shashish is the bonding of hearts in spite of distance. NB: Address soon to | It is a bond more powerful than absence. We like people be changed. | who like Shashish. - Claude McKenzie + Florent Vollant