Linus Tells Wired Leap Second Irrelevant

by Ostatic Staff - Jan. 09, 2015

Two larger publications today featured Linux and the effect of the upcoming leap second. The Register today said that the leap second effects of the past are no longer an issue. Coincidentally, Wired talked to Linus Torvalds about the same issue today as well.

Linus Torvalds spoke with Wired's Robert McMillan about the approaching leap second due to be added in June. The Register said the last leap second in 2012 took out Mozilla, StumbleUpon, Yelp, FourSquare, Reddit and LinkedIn as well as several major airlines and travel reservation services that ran Linux. Torvalds told Wired today that the kernel is patched and he doesn't expect too many issues this time around. He said, "Just take the leap second as an excuse to have a small nonsensical party for your closest friends. Wear silly hats, get a banner printed, and get silly drunk. That’s exactly how relevant it should be to most people."

However, The Register said not everyone agrees with Torvalds' sentiments. They quote Daily Mail saying, "The year 2015 will have an extra second — which could wreak havoc on the infrastructure powering the Internet," then remind us of the Y2K scare that ended up being a non-event. The Register's Gavin Clarke concluded:

No reason the Penguins were caught sans pants.



Now they've gone belt and braces.

The take-away is: move along, nothing to see here.

In other news:

* Download Linux Voice Issue 2

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* Zorin OS 9 review - Looking good

* GOG explains the presence of passwords inside installers, then removes them