Let's get rid of pivots

Eric S. Raymond esr at thyrsus.com
Tue Apr 18 19:04:41 UTC 2017


Hal Murray <hmurray at megapathdsl.net>:
> An alternative approach would be to get rid of pivots totally.  If we removed 
> all of the pivot code and logic from the current code, it will work until 
> 2036.  How long will it take to implement and deploy a new version of ntp 
> protocol with enough bits?

There are technical issues with this idea, but they're not the ones that
worry me most.  The politics and optics of abandoning the cross-era
compatibility written into RFC5905 would be *awful*.

Our project has enemies.  We must not give them a club that large to
near us with.  We not only have to do the conservative, RFC-conformant
thing, we have to be seen to do it.
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