Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1753723AbZAFCSv (ORCPT ); Mon, 5 Jan 2009 21:18:51 -0500 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S1751761AbZAFCSk (ORCPT ); Mon, 5 Jan 2009 21:18:40 -0500 Received: from bee.hiwaay.net ([216.180.54.11]:31383 "EHLO bee.hiwaay.net" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1751816AbZAFCSj (ORCPT ); Mon, 5 Jan 2009 21:18:39 -0500 Date: Mon, 5 Jan 2009 20:18:28 -0600 From: Chris Adams To: David Newall Cc: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Subject: Re: Bug: Status/Summary of slashdot leap-second crash on new years 2008-2009 Message-ID: <20090106021828.GA1099402@hiwaay.net> References: <496076A9.7030907@davidnewall.com> <4960897D.5030603@davidnewall.com> <4961432A.80509@davidnewall.com> <49614835.7000505@davidnewall.com> <3ae3aa420901042148o1c96985dube8e03085c997a07@mail.gmail.com> <20090105143335.GC18055@mail.local.tull.net> <4962BB13.7060304@davidnewall.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <4962BB13.7060304@davidnewall.com> User-Agent: Mutt/1.4i Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org List-ID: X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Content-Length: 2039 Lines: 41 Once upon a time, David Newall said: > We have this already; zoneinfo How many times: zoneinfo is for offset from UTC, not changes in UTC. > I haven't been able to find this Annex B that Alan talked of, so I can > only go by the man page, which states, simply and explicitly, that > time() returns seconds since Epoch, and also that Epoch is start of > January 1 1970. To my mind, time *does* recognise leap seconds. Part of the rationale for SUSv3 (aka 1003.1-2001), xbd_chap04.html in my copy: The topic of whether seconds since the Epoch should account for leap seconds has been debated on a number of occasions, and each time consensus was reached (with acknowledged dissent each time) that the majority of users are best served by treating all days identically. (That is, the majority of applications were judged to assume a single length-as measured in seconds since the Epoch-for all days. Thus, leap seconds are not applied to seconds since the Epoch.) Those applications which do care about leap seconds can determine how to handle them in whatever way those applications feel is best. This was particularly emphasized because there was disagreement about what the best way of handling leap seconds might be. It is a practical impossibility to mandate that a conforming implementation must have a fixed relationship to any particular official clock (consider isolated systems, or systems performing "reruns" by setting the clock to some arbitrary time). Now, you are wrong, the standard says so, please take this somewhere else and stop CCing me. -- Chris Adams Systems and Network Administrator - HiWAAY Internet Services I don't speak for anybody but myself - that's enough trouble. -- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/