Date: Tue, 13 Jan 1998 19:21:50 -0800 (PST) From: Doug White <dwhite@gdi.uoregon.edu> To: "tien@bisnews.co.th" <tien@bisnews.co.th> Cc: freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: year 2000 compliance Message-ID: <Pine.BSF.3.96.980113191719.24708H-100000@gdi.uoregon.edu> In-Reply-To: <199801120433.LAA10472@mailhub.bisnews.co.th>
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On Mon, 12 Jan 1998, tien@bisnews.co.th wrote: > I have questions regarding year 2000 compliance of FreeBSD > version 2.1.5. Is FreeBSD 2.1.5 year 2000 compliant? Do you have > any document support on your compliance status? Where could I get > all the information about FreeBSD year 2000 compliance? Your > answers are very essential to us in order to develop our systems. > Can you please reply to us as soon as possible. UNIX systems in general should be year 2000 OK. UNIX/FreeBSD represent time as seconds since Jan 1, 1970, so they are OK until they fill up a 32 bit integer, which would occur in 2038 or so if technology never advanced. We are on the brink of 64-bit machines, though, and no doubt that the size will increase well before there's a problem. Most, if not all, of the system utilities do their work using this format (time_t), so they should not be affected either. The big problem is in user utilities. Not everyone may know about time_t and used 2 digit years. You should check your user programs out; easiest way is to build a test box, set the date to Dec 31, 1999, 11:59pm and watch for fireworks. :) At some point you should check your server hardware that they roll the date properly (esp. really really old stock). Hope this helps. Doug White | University of Oregon Internet: dwhite@resnet.uoregon.edu | Residence Networking Assistant http://gladstone.uoregon.edu/~dwhite | Computer Science Major
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