[sla29970]

"My system clock is wrong, what action shall I take to correct it?" Common answers to that question are "step" or "smear". The notion that the clock could be wrong is not addressed in the design of most systems, and "smear" is widely accepted as the least harmful fix.

[vba616]

Yes, I'm wondering when/how "smearing" became widely accepted, since the Wikipedia page on leap seconds only says that there is a proprietary method that Google uses, and another that Amazon uses.

"UTC-SLS was proposed as a version of UTC with linear leap smearing, but it never became standard"

[sla29970]

Lack of agreement; "smearing" is completely normal for answering "What time is it?", and completely wrong for applications requiring precise time.