About leap seconds

Doing away with leap seconds has been up for debate since at least 2013, on grounds that they’re more trouble than they’re worth. Leap seconds have represented risks to important communications and computing systems. Time Lords decree an end to leap seconds before risky attempt to reverse time article tells that The Bureau International des Poids et Mesures (BIPM) has made a decision, and declared that the world can do without leap seconds. Last week, the BIPM’s 27th General Conference on Weights and Measures decided [PDF] the leap second’s day is done: The body called for an end to leap seconds and for work to commence on a proposal for a “new maximum value for the difference (UT1-UTC) that will ensure the continuity of UTC for at least a century.” The change does not come any time soon. A 2035 deadline for formulating that maximum value was set, and the 28th General Conference on Weights and Measures in 2026 will vote on a resolution to make it happen.

It was considered that today leap second causes more problems than what benefits it gives. Leap seconds have occasionally been added to official timekeeping records to reflect changes in the Earth’s angular rotation. Leap seconds are painful to promulgate in the digital realm. There are many systems that do not handle leap seconds correctly. Remember that one time the Linux kernel couldn’t cope for a moment? The Linux kernel’s inability to handle added leap seconds caused plenty of crashes in 2012. A 2015 leap second also caused issues and in 2016 Cloudflare stumbled when confronted with the need to add a second. I also remember debugging some computer system issues caused by leap second.

Maybe we should also get rid of Summer time in Europe disruptions also?

Sources:
https://www.theregister.com/2022/11/22/leap_seconds_discontinued/
https://www.bipm.org/documents/20126/64811223/Resolutions-2022.pdf/281f3160-fc56-3e63-dbf7-77b76500990f