From owner-freebsd-chat Wed Nov 19 10:19:27 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) id KAA07284 for chat-outgoing; Wed, 19 Nov 1997 10:19:27 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from owner-freebsd-chat) Received: from wakko.visint.co.uk (wakko.visint.co.uk [194.207.134.12]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id KAA07258 for ; Wed, 19 Nov 1997 10:19:20 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from steve@visint.co.uk) Received: from dylan.visint.co.uk (dylan.visint.co.uk [194.207.134.180]) by wakko.visint.co.uk (8.8.5/8.7.3) with SMTP id SAA21318; Wed, 19 Nov 1997 18:19:01 GMT Date: Wed, 19 Nov 1997 18:19:01 +0000 (GMT) From: Stephen Roome To: Nate Williams cc: freebsd-chat@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Tell the world about Year 2000 Compliance In-Reply-To: <199711191807.LAA05380@mt.sri.com> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-freebsd-chat@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk On Wed, 19 Nov 1997, Nate Williams wrote: > > Finally, what's being done (if any?) to insure that FreeBSD _IS_ and > > _REMAINS_ Year 2000 compliant... e.g. New packages/ports etc. > > The non-use of Cobol. :) Well, that's sort of important I guess, but it's bad enough that most peoples only problem with Cobol is the date thing! > Seriously, almost all unix programs store times/date as milliseconds > since 1970, so they don't have a Y2K problem, but they have the Year > 2038 problem. However, it's hoped that by the time this comes about the > number used to store the time will be bumped to a much bigger #, making > the problem go away. Yes, but what about packages and apps which get installed as the default system which don't do this ? How about things which might store in strange internal formats in their own files. This is my main concern, after noticing that date can have leap seconds and stuff I guess it look carefully thought out. > However, if that doesn't happen *OR* the programs in question aren't > recompiled, the problem will be the same for them in 2038. However, by > then I won't care since I'll be old and grey. :) :) :) I'm not worried about this one until our clients tell me that they aren't going to be doing business until I can prove that our systems are Year 2038 Compliant. Something I doubt they'll worry about for a while. Maybe premature by in 203x this sounds like the sort of thing that'll give UNIX the sort of name Cobol has. (although, yes, I guess it'll have been fixed by then!) Steve. -- Steve Roome - Vision Interactive Ltd. Tel:+44(0)117 9730597 Home:+44(0)976 241342 WWW: http://dylan.visint.co.uk/