Re: [LEAPSECS] International Conference on Civil Timekeeping (was Re: [LEAPSECS] WP7A press release)

From: Poul-Henning Kamp <phk_at_phk.freebsd.dk>
Date: Fri, 18 Nov 2005 17:01:05 +0100

In message <1E0C2031-49BC-4F0F-AE5B-545DCFA6C2BD_at_noao.edu>, Rob Seaman writes:
>On Nov 18, 2005, at 5:21 AM, Poul-Henning Kamp wrote:

>As with any consensus-building, the weight is on whoever would like
>to see such emerge. For instance, just by debating the issue, the
>ITU is asserting that they "own" the UTC standard. Is this actually
>the case? I suspect that a squadron of lawyers would likely find
>that the International Telecommunications Union is the appropriate
>international body to transport time signals relating to, well,
>international telecommunications - but what exactly is that? Clearly
>other time signal providers exist, e.g., GPS and NTP. But who owns
>the underlying concept of Universal Time or the UTC flavor of same?
>Perhaps this is the first consensus position to identify.

(Along these lines I find it a far more interesting question who
"owns" the leap-day formula. Is it still the pope ? :-)

I see neither reason nor advantage to move UTC from ITU which is an
UN body where all citizens of the planet have a voice to a semi-closed
priesthood like IERS or BIPM where only scientists have a voice. In
particular not given that these particular scientists seem to be
very behind the curve when it comes to modern technologies like
data/tele networks etc.

--
Poul-Henning Kamp       | UNIX since Zilog Zeus 3.20
phk_at_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.
Received on Fri Nov 18 2005 - 08:12:39 PST

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