ietf-nntp Section 11.5 - NEWNEWS

[Paul Overell]

In article <G4BuyK.3DB at clw.cs.man.ac.uk>, Charles Lindsey
<chl at clw.cs.man.ac.uk> writes
>In <20001118154625.D34936 at demon.net> "Clive D.W. Feather" <clive at demon.net> 
>writes:
>
>
>
>Since your typical server is likely to be a few seconds out, and internet
>protocols should make allowance for this, the only sensible thing is for
>the Internet to run on a fictitious "POSIX time" in which each year
>contains exactly 365*24*60*60 seconds (plus extra in leap years), which is
>kept broadly in line with UTC by means of every server syncing itself
>whenever it (or its admins) sees fit. That is essentially what happens
>currently, and we have to live with it.
>

It is not "the only sensible thing".  As has already been mentioned some
systems run on TAI internally and convert to UTC as required.  But this
is really not relevant.

Whether from POSIX time or TAI or NTP or GPS or the speaking clock or a
video camera mounted on a sun dial :) - how a server obtains UTC is not
our problem.

The DATE command returns UTC.  It SHOULD be accurate.

Regards

-- 
Paul Overell                                             T U R N P I K E