Adhemerval Zanella Netto wrote:
> ... all the trouble gnulib is pushing?

The trouble does not originate in gnulib; it originate through the
use of inconsistent time APIs.

On a typical system, there are
  - hundreds of programs that call gettimeofday() or timespec_get(),
  - hundreds of programs that call time().
Find attached the lists of programs in /usr/bin on my machine:
  - 425 programs that call gettimeofday() or timespec_get(),
  - 730 programs that call time().

Each time a program calls gettimeofday() or timespec_get(), and then,
within 1 to 3 milliseconds, a program (the same or a different one)
calls time(), there is the potential for trouble because the time
appears to go backwards. This trouble can occur with probability
between 0.1% and 0.3%, according to the data in
https://sourceware.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=30200 .

Gnulib attempts to reduce the trouble for specific programs, by
moving them from the "call time()" camp to the "call gettimeofday() or
timespec_get()" camp.

Bruno