I predicted this for leap smear a while back-- we have time sync because having systems with different times is a source of problems... logical fix: get them onto the same time.<p>Smear is a workaround for those who care about phase alignment but don't care about frequency error. ... and who don't need to exchange times with anyone else. This last point reduces the set to no one, since it can't extend to everyone (some parties care a lot more about frequency error than phase error!).<p>This circus is enhanced by NTP's inability to tell you what timebase it's using (or, god forbid, offsets between what its giving you and other timebases...)<p>It's going be especially awesome when NTP daemons with both smear and non-smear peers get both the smear frequency error AND get a leap second.<p>I for one welcome this great opportunity for an enhanced trash fire to help convince the world that we need to stop issuing leap seconds. (It's absurd-- causes tens of millions in disruption easily, -- and it would take 4000 years to even drift an hour off solar time, at which point timezones could be rotated if anyone really cared).