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Please donate to keep Network Time Protocol up – Goal 1k

(www.ntp.org)
299 points gastonmorixe | 3 comments | 12 Nov 25 07:56 UTC | HN request time: 0.804s | source
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juliusceasar ◴[12 Nov 25 13:00 UTC] No.45899605[source]▶
I refuse to donate. Trillion dollar companies depend leech on it and yet refuse to spend money on it.

Let it fail and see what happens.

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Aurornis ◴[12 Nov 25 14:05 UTC] No.45900322[source]▶
Those trillion dollar companies are running a lot of public NTP server infrastructure. Here is a list of public NTP addresses from different big tech companies: https://gist.github.com/mutin-sa/eea1c396b1e610a2da1e5550d94...

> Trillion dollar companies depend leech on it

Are you confusing the NTP Foundation (the group asking for donations) with NTP the protocol or the NTP software itself?

This donation request isn’t even for the public NTP pool. Read the donation page carefully.

The big companies you’re angry at are neither dependent upon nor leeching from this group. They run their own NTP infrastructure, which in some cases has their own developments and adjustments.

Google’s, for example, uses time-smearing to handle leaps. This is different than the standard and therefore you shouldn’t mix Google’s leap-smearing NTP system with NTP servers that don’t leap smear.

> Let it fail and see what happens.

This is a real “cut off your nose to spite your face” moment, but worse: Those public companies don’t depend on any of this. They provide their own server pools and in some cases develop their own software with their own advancements. Cheering for the NTP Foundation to fail because you think it will hurt big companies is very uninformed.

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righthand ◴[12 Nov 25 14:57 UTC] No.45901016[source]▶
It would hurt the big companies though because the employees of those big companies rely on Ntp. It may not directly impact them but it’s better than letting them continue to rake in billions and then never support the core foundational tech.

Maybe letting Ntp fail will wake up some of the employees of other companies to the absolute sad state of the software world.

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Aurornis ◴[12 Nov 25 15:07 UTC] No.45901143[source]▶
> Maybe letting Ntp fail will wake up some of the employees of other companies to the absolute sad state of the software world.

Big companies run their own NTP servers (which you can use for free) and do not use the reference implantation.

There is nothing to “fail” in this project which would cause big companies to have infrastructure problems.

The saddest state of the software world is that some people here have convinced themselves to cheer for this project to fail because they don’t understand that big companies do not depend on this project that is asking for donations.

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1. righthand ◴[12 Nov 25 15:11 UTC] No.45901183[source]▶
From the previous comment.

> Google’s, for example, uses time-smearing to handle leaps. This is different than the standard and therefore you shouldn’t mix Google’s leap-smearing NTP system with NTP servers that don’t leap smear.

So we can use or not?

If we can then well good, then there will be no problem then if the funding fails.

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2. Aurornis ◴[12 Nov 25 15:14 UTC] No.45901222[source]▶
> If we can then well good, then there will be no problem then if the funding fails

The funding is not for the NTP servers or pools. Please read the actual page and all of the comments trying to explain that the HN title is a lie. NTP will not “go down” if this project fails.

You can use Google or Amazon’s NTP servers if you’d like. Just be aware of how they represent leap seconds differently.

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3. righthand ◴[12 Nov 25 17:57 UTC] No.45903369[source]▶
You’re just validating my reasons to not donate which is what this discussion is about. It’s not about the way Ntp specifically works or what the money will go to. My reasons for not donating are that bad acting corpos have destroyed any reason or trust to support these smaller outfits whether directly impactful or not.