[time-nuts] Is using TAI in Unix/Linux system clocks working in 2019?

[jimlux]

On 8/8/19 1:30 AM, Ralph Aichinger wrote:
> Hi!
> 
> Another newbie type question: When thinking about how computers represent
> time,
> TAI would probably be the more logical way to store and do calculations
> with time, only including leap seconds when formatting time for human
> consumption. Or am I wrong
> in this?

No, you are correct - that is the *right* way to do it, but sadly, there 
are all kinds of gyrations that people go through because they want to 
work in UTC (or GMT or Central Daylight Time) as the native time.

Even in the space business, which should know better...



> 
> There is a CLOCK_TAI on Linux, but what will happen if I use it as my
> default clock?
> Will stuff break in subtle ways (older programs, whatever)? I've read that
> chrony does
> not initialize it correctly, which makes me suspect this stuff is not quite
> ready for prime
> time? Does anyone on this list have Linux systems that are "TAI only", e.g.
> writing
> their system logs with TAI timestamps, etc.? There are certainly people
> keeping all their clock
> settings to UTC/GMT even when their local timezone is quite a bit off. Can
> the same thing be
> done in practice with TAI?
> 
> /ralph
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