[ntp:questions] Can or should the NTP protocol eventually serve timezone data?

David J Taylor david-taylor at blueyonder.not-this-part.nor-this.co.uk.invalid
Thu Jun 18 09:14:18 UTC 2009


Rob wrote:
[]
> So your standpoint is that every system builder who wants to do
> such localization should be on their own, providing their own update
> mechanism, and there should not be a universal update mechanism for
> timezone updates that is neutral to operating system?

Initially, using something like NTP to distribute the information sounds 
to have its good points, and some drawbacks.  How much information would 
be involved - how many extra bytes per day would be needed?  How often 
would the data be sent?

Having said that, I do feel that it's an OS issue, and not an NTP issue, 
and if the data is readily available in the correct format, why not just 
retrieve it with FTP or HTTP?  Bu then, how does one ensure that the 
distribution workload is distributed amongst many servers, rather than 
having all the world's PCs querying one server?  Make every NTP server 
optionally an HTTP server on port 123?

Just some random thoughts...

Cheers,
David 




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