Date: Sun, 09 Feb 1997 15:17:19 -0800 From: Jake Hamby <jehamby@lightside.com> To: hackers@freebsd.org Subject: Year 2000 UNIX info (from Sun) Message-ID: <32FE5AFF.5D48@lightside.com>
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Here is a list of some known Year 2000 problems with Solaris, courtesy of the Solaris FAQ (http://www.fwi.uva.nl/pub/solaris/solaris2). I'm sure FreeBSD shares a few of these problems, at least in the areas where both OS's derive from the same source base. Enjoy! -- Jake Hamby A year 2000 project at Sun (http://www.sun.com/y2000/) plans to review all libraries, unbundled software, and some 3rd party apps in search of potential year 2000 problems, so that they are resolved well before the big day. Sun-maintained Solaris applications with known year-2000 problems as of Solaris 2.5.1 include the following; these problems should be fixed in Solaris 2.6. * SCCS files store only the last two digits of the year, so SCCS stops working after 1999. Fixing this requires coordination with other SCCS vendors. * The Solaris 1 `date' command can't set the clock past 1999. This bug is partly fixed in Solaris 2 `date', which supports both 2-digit and 4-digit years; however, in Solaris 2 you should use 4-digit years when setting the date, to avoid some remaining bugs with 2-digit year handling. * The following programs are known to have minor bugs related to using year-1900 instead of year modulo 100 when generating diagnostics, temporary file names, and the like: atq fsck listen passwd sar timex ufsdump uucico uustat uuxqt xterm * The -me, -mm, and -ms troff macro packages all assume that the current date is before January 1, 2000. * `sortbib' mishandles bibliographies containing 2-digit years that span the year-2000 boundary. * `ckdate' rejects years after 1999. * Problems have been reported with installing Solaris on machines whose hardware date is past 1999. * The filemgr `find after' and `find before' operations have only 2-digit inputs for years, and mishandle dates after 1999. * cm (the calendar manager) mishandles dates after 2000-02-29. * In Openstep, NSCalendarDate, NSDate*, Mail, and Prefrence need enhancements and fixes for years past 1999. In addition, user applications that invoke `getdate' and `strptime' on 2-digit years are advised to check their assumptions carefully.
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