fair@clock.org (Erik E. Fair) writes:
> At the end of each June and December, the International Earth Rotation
> Service (IERS) can declare a "leap second" to be added or deleted from
> UTC, resulting in 23:59:60 or an apparent jump from 23:59:58 to
> 00:00:00.

It always struck me that allowing leap seconds to wrench the system's
time was a bit like keeping the kernel time in local-wall-time and
then pulling some elaborate slight of hand during the
daylight-savings-time transitions.

I recall reading Bernstein's proposals to keep the kernel time in
purely monotonically increasing seconds and simply using the Olson
time-printing code in libc in its other mode where is would add the
leap seconds in only at time display time.  Are there any technical
gotcha's that would bite one in the butt if the leap seconds were
moved out of the kernel's time?

        http://cr.yp.to/proto/utctai.html

-wolfgang
-- 
       Wolfgang Rupprecht <wolfgang+gnus@dailyplanet.wsrcc.com>
		    http://www.wsrcc.com/wolfgang/
      Hackers don't spread viruses.  Microsoft spreads viruses.