Olson, Arthur David wrote:
[M]ight a name more neutral than "zoneinfo-right" be better? (I'm mindful of our past experience with "Pacific-New"; I don't want to unnecessarily tempt folks to replace "zoneinfo" with "zoneinfo-right".)
A fine idea! I propose the use of "zoneinfo-iers". The IERS, or International Earth Rotation Service, http://hpiers.obspm.fr/ , is the agency which decides when to insert leap seconds.
From http://hpiers.obspm.fr/iers/bul/bulc/BULLETINC.GUIDE : "The decision to introduce a leap second in UTC to meet this condition [keeping UT1-UTC smaller than 0.9s in absolute value] is the responsability [sic] of the IERS."
On leap seconds: having a single leap second file would eliminate the ability to have "rolling" leap seconds. (This was provided when, one year, the city of New York announced that the countdown for the dropping of the big ball that marks the beginning of the new year would run "3...2...1...LEAP...Happy New Year!", putting the leap second at midnight local time. The time zone data as distributed reflects internationally agreed leap-second-occurs-at-the-same-instant-everywhere-on-Earth behavior.)
I think rolling leap seconds are a dumb idea. Just because somebody in NYC (it wasn't me, honest!) decided to insert a leap second five hours early, doesn't mean that rational people ought to support this behavior. Similarly, the (former?) existence of an L.A. nightclub which celebrates New Year's Eve every night doesn't mean that some zones have years that are 1 day long. -- John Cowan http://www.ccil.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org You tollerday donsk? N. You tolkatiff scowegian? Nn. You spigotty anglease? Nnn. You phonio saxo? Nnnn. Clear all so! 'Tis a Jute.... (Finnegans Wake 16.5)