Portable general timestamp format, not 2038-limited

[sla29970 at gmail.com]

On Jul 3, 1:10 am, Paul Rubin <http://phr...@NOSPAM.invalid> wrote:
> Well, if you're trying to pick just one timestamp standard, I'd say
> you're better off using a worldwide one rather than a national one, no
> matter how the bureaucracies work.  TAI is derived from atomic clocks
> all over the world, while the national metrology labs are more subject
> to error and desynchronization, and whatever legal primacy they have
> is good in only one country.

For the purposes of an operational system there is an important
difference between a time scale which is practically available in real
time and a time scale which is not available until next month.  There
is no available source for TAI, and in the current scheme of things
there cannot be one for there is no mechanism for distributing it.

There are two reasonably reliable worldwide time sources right now:
Russia's GLONASS and US GPS.  GPS time is based on UTC(USNO).
UTC(USNO) is TA(USNO) minus leap seconds.  Note that is TA(USNO), not
TAI(USNO), for USNO cannot define anything named TAI.