Re: [Ntp] Antw: [EXT] Re: CLOCK_TAI (was NTPv5: big picture)

[Steve Allen <[e-mail]>]

On Fri 2021-01-08T15:27:20+0000 Doug Arnold hath writ:
> When I first heard of leap seconds I thought it was a terrible idea, a clumsy hack.

So also did every technical member of the committees who consulted on
the change that resulted in leap seconds.  In their technical niches
all of them announced that their systems would not use leap seconds,
but the only official document that hinted about that was CCIR
Recommendation 485, but that was suppressed in 1997 right around when
the effort to abolish leap seconds began.

The problem that led to leap seconds was not technical, it was finding
a time scale which could achieve international agreement for use by
the existing time distribution systems without being explicitly
illegal in any jurisdiction.  This concern was redacted from the
official documents and records and is only visible in memoirs of the
participants.  The same sort of problem cropped up in 2015 when the
ITU tried to abolish leap seconds, and that discussion is also missing
from official documents.

Until there is international agreement that the calendar day is not
determined by observing the earth rotate the best strategy for a time
system is to follow the lead of the original participants and use a
TAI-like time scale as the basis.

--
Steve Allen                    <[e-mail]>              WGS-84 (GPS)
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