Quoting Olaf Meeuwissen (paddy-hack@???):

> I think it's fair to point out that systemd-timesyncd only promises
> Simple NTP (SNTP). How good a job it does of that is another matter
> but at least it explains some of the "quirks" you mention below.

Put that way, fair point. _But_, the larger context is that a
systematically better job of time sync, using better code and also (in
the case of ntimed-client), _smaller_ code, can be performed instead,
gaining all the advantages of a real NTP client.

Or, to put it a different way, with several excellent genuine NTP
clients to choose among, I deny the existence of a compelling use-case
for any SNTP client, let alone one that's more than a little slipshod.
(systemd-timed's security history, which I didn't get into, is less than
reassuring.)

The SNTP protocol is what Windows users settle for, because that's what
they're offered by defaul, and mostly they don't know that they're
missing out. On Linux, we don't need to settle.