Re: [art] Predictable Internet Time

[Joe Touch <[e-mail]>]

Hi, Nico,


On 3/28/2017 12:00 PM, Nico Williams wrote:
> ...
>> Unix defines only POSIX time right now, FWIW.
> POSIX defines POSIX time.  Unix and Unix-like systems use it.
>
> (Nothing stops any Unix-like OS from including extensions.)
Agreed.
>
>> AFAICT, wouldn't specing Unix interfaces to the different times below be
>> out of scope for the IETF?
> Yes and no.
>
> First, the IETF has and does specify some APIs.  (BSD sockets bindings
> for IPv6, GSS-API, and various others.)

Only network APIs, AFAICT>

> Second, the IETF could define abstract APIs but refrain from specifying
> C bindings for APIs and recommend to the Open Group and others that they
> standardize those based on the abstract APIs.  (GSS-API, for example,
> defines both, abstract and programming-language-specific bindings.)
>
> Regardless, how could we address our time issues without specifying what
> amounts to.. type conversions? 
*our* time issues are mostly that we need to know the time frame being
used, and to appreciate that there's no single solution that can be used
to calculate intervals AND correspond to civil time that avoids the need
for constantly-updated external information. No closed system is
sufficient for that.

> ...
>
> Obviously, for leap second smearing, besides an API there is also
> behavior (smearing).

I sincerely hope we can stop referring to this nonstandard technique. We
certainly cannot even consider standardizing a conversion (even if that
were our purview) between time scales that include smearing until there
are smearing standards.

A key point in this doc is that smearing makes things horribly worse,
not better in any way, except to delude users into thinking otherwise.

Joe