Tony Finch wrote:
Martin Burnicki <martin.burnicki@meinberg.de> wrote:
The NIST file doesn't contain a copyright information, neither. So where does the idea come from that the NIST file is in the public domain, but the IERS file isn't?
I believe works funded by the US federal government are public domain by default.
The easy solution to this problem is for the TZ project to produce its own list of leap seconds rather than distributing someone else's.
Of course everybody could easily create his own leap seconds file. However, the idea is to have a reliable, authentic source of information rather than a wide variety of files providing different information. BTW, IMO there should be a kind of signature for the file. Originally the file was only available via FTP, which can easily be faked. Now there are some sources via https, so at least when downloading there is a certain level of security that you get an authentic file. However, after download you still can't be sure the file has not been modified. The included SHA1 hash can be generated by anyone to let the file look secure, but a real security could only be achieved by a public/private key signature which can be verified at any time. Martin -- Martin Burnicki Senior Software Engineer MEINBERG Funkuhren GmbH & Co. KG Email: martin.burnicki@meinberg.de Phone: +49 (0)5281 9309-14 Fax: +49 (0)5281 9309-30 Lange Wand 9, 31812 Bad Pyrmont, Germany Amtsgericht Hannover 17HRA 100322 Geschäftsführer/Managing Directors: Günter Meinberg, Werner Meinberg, Andre Hartmann, Heiko Gerstung Web: http://www.meinberg.de