[ntp:questions] Leap second functional question

David L. Mills mills at udel.edu
Sat Feb 23 20:00:58 UTC 2008


Richard,

There might actually have been standards committee members paid by the 
ITU, but I never met one. They were all paid by private and sometimes 
government sources who had very real private agendae. Sometimes when the 
discussions got hot the expert smokejumpers were parachuted in from 
corporate headquarters. One of them was me and I waS paid as a DARPA 
contractor.

Dave

Richard B. Gilbert wrote:

> sla29970 at gmail.com wrote:
> 
>> On Feb 22, 12:26 pm, "David L. Mills" <mi... at udel.edu> wrote:
>>
>>> My reference for leap second introduction was CCIR Recommendation 517,
>>> which permits leaps only June/December.
>>
>>
>>
>> For reference, that is now known as ITU-R RA.517, available for
>> purchase at
>> http://www.itu.int/rec/R-REC-RA.517/en
>> as near as I can tell, any language on leap seconds was merely by
>> reference to what is now known as ITU-R TF.460, and it had all been
>> removed prior to revision 3 of that document which is now at revision
>> 4.
>>
>> Sigh.  When its name was CCIR it was dismayingly poor at
>> consultation.  Now that its name is ITU-R it is still dismayingly poor
>> at communication.  I don't like it when international standards needed
>> by lots of operational systems are hidden away in proprietary
>> documents.
> 
> 
> Who pays the people who develop the standards??  For their time?  Their 
> travel to attend meetings?  Sometimes their employers will fund this 
> sort of thing but if it's not business related they have no obligation 
> to do so.
> 




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