[NTLUG:Discuss] Slightly OT: Why would I care about Leap Seconds

[Leroy Tennison]

Fred James wrote:
> All
> Why would I care about Leap Seconds?  In the first paragraph at 
> <http://cspry.co.uk/computing/Indy_admin/TIMEZONE.html> it says: 
> "However, `TIMEZONE', as implemented in this way in IRIX, does not take 
> into account leap seconds, nor changes made by the European Union and 
> other bodies, in daylight savings time. The TIMEZONE settings have to be 
> altered manually every year, to update them, as changeovers are often 
> variable.**"  Do I care, and if so why?  No, I am not in the UK or 
> Europe - I am in Texas.  Thank you in advance for any help you may be 
> able to offer.
> Regards
> Fred James
>
> PS:  I am using TZ=CST6CDT5,M3.2.0/2,M11.1.0/2 to deal with the new 
> rules and so far testing has shown it to work on SGI IRIX 6.*, and on 
> Unisys UNIX SVR4 release 2.  I shall be testing on some Linux boxes soon.
>
>
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>   
Unless you are doing something esoteric and needing to keep in sync. 
with other machines that are "leap second aware" I would ask the 
question "Who cares about a second of deviation or even a minute?" Sure, 
with NTP you can stay within a second or two of UCT and that's not a bad 
idea but somewhere the "Get a life" sanity check needs to be introduced. 
Of course, with a question like this, "Ask five experts, get six 
answers" is probably going to apply.