[time-nuts] GMT vs. UTC

[Poul-Henning Kamp]

In message <20061121.092927.58461219.imp at bsdimp.com>, "M. Warner Losh" writes:

>GMT means many different things over time.  Once upon a time it did
>mean [...]

Just to be clear:  GMT has always meant "Greenwich Mean Time".

What time that was on the other hand, has changed a lot.

>Now it is much
>closer to UTC in definition, but it can be hard to find an exact
>definition because it keeps changing.  The differences are < 1s (thank
>you leap seconds, or curse you depending on your stripe).

The important point here is that GMT is a political timezone, not a
scientific one.  You get the wrong minister in whitehall and GMT
does something silly.

-- 
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.