Date: Mon, 02 Jan 2006 23:27:31 +0100 From: "Poul-Henning Kamp" <phk@phk.freebsd.dk> To: "Kevin Oberman" <oberman@es.net> Cc: Matthias Andree <matthias.andree@gmx.de>, current@freebsd.org Subject: Re: FreeBSD handles leapsecond correctly Message-ID: <80965.1136240851@critter.freebsd.dk> In-Reply-To: Your message of "Mon, 02 Jan 2006 14:19:48 PST." <20060102221948.EBE475D09@ptavv.es.net>
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In message <20060102221948.EBE475D09@ptavv.es.net>, "Kevin Oberman" writes: >Leap years are an artifact of a lousy calendar that has origins over 2 >millennia ago. Many calendars have been proposed which fix this, but >calendar reform is simply not going to happen in our society, but leap >years are a known, non-varying and trivially calculable issue. No magic >and trivial to handle. Interestingly, the main reason why calendar reform is a no-talk issue seems to be that The Vatican owns the standardization area of calendars because they have written all (relevant) standards for the area in the past. According to one insider, none of the possible owners of a new calendar (ITU, ISO & BIPM) can bring it on themselves to ask the pope permission to take over the area. (ISO has documented the current calendar, but go to some pains to make it clear that they didn't come up with it.) Considering that a merry band of brits are still fighting to get compensation for the 15 days they "lost" last time Brittain changed calendar, the political and legal fallout will probably galvanize the current calendar until something really drastic happens. Poul-Henning -- Poul-Henning Kamp | UNIX since Zilog Zeus 3.20 phk@FreeBSD.ORG | TCP/IP since RFC 956 FreeBSD committer | BSD since 4.3-tahoe Never attribute to malice what can adequately be explained by incompetence.
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