[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]
[OT] Re: Y2K compliant
Hi everyone,
Yoni Elhanani wrote:
>
> Hashibon Adham wrote:
> >
> > I dont think i am eligible to give a 100% proof answer, but look at the
> > dates in 'ls --full-time -alF' you see dates like 1999, so as far as the
> > origin of Y2K problem (year 99 for example) you're safe. Well, I guess
> > you could at least say that 'ls' is Y2K, but not sure about other
> > applications! though it is most probable to be so too.
> >
> >
>
> Actually,
> If I'm not mistaking,
> Linux (and other unices) count time as seconds from midnight, january
> 1st, 1970.
I have no intentions to start a Y2K thread (war?). However, I must add
that the fact that an OS has as it's primary data structure for dates
a 32bit integer for the number of seconds since 1970, still doesn't
mean it can't have very serious Y2K problems.
VMS has a few DS's for time, none of them Y2K problematic. It also
has in one of it's libraries conversion functions for dates. Some
of them take as a parameter a 4 byte string (interpreted as decimal)
to be the number of days since 1970. This works until somewhere inside
1997. There is no confusion here. The docs were very accurate. Many
software packages were written that used it correctly. Still, some of
the major parts of the OS used it incorrectly, including something
called (IIRC) 'Security Manager' - an add-on since VMS 7.0 (IIRC).
This is not Y2K, you might say Y1997 :-). Actually, any DS with small
limits (for dates included, but many others too) has a potential for
problems. (Of course, it remains to be said what is 'small').
Digital tried to hide this fact, but somehow it spread around it's
customers a few months before the end, and there was a big panic.
I hope nobody thinks Digital was a BAD company. Maybe not the best,
since they didn't invent linux, but one of the good ones.
I only give this story to point out there is no guaranty for being
Y2K compliant in having 32bit seconds enough until 2038. Every
program has bugs, as we all know.
The reason I personally think linux is (more or less) Y2K ready
(and I refer to, say, a decent distribution of today, not just
the kernel) is because good programmers wrote it, a lot of good
programmers debugged it, and because most of it is new, and was
written after Y2K problems became a known issue, and were at the
conciousness of many of the world's programmers.
Also, I suggest to anyone having a critical linux server to
personally do at least basic checks concerning Y2K, just to make
sure. If your server is really critical, you can't rely on having
hundreads of thousands of such servers around the world. It is
criticall to YOU.
> Sicne it does store in 32 bits, it will last until 2038.
> Until then, either the entire human civilization will be destroyed by
> asteroids,
> (that will happend in 2037 according to an artice I saw once on
> slashdot)
> or we will use 64 bits for dates, thus we will not have a problem until
> the year 299,865,141,800 or so.
> (and then, if we exist, we will use a 128 bit date, it will last until
> 5.531535563e+30)
>
> So, I don't think you have much to worry about.
Maybe not much, but I suggest to worry at least a little
>
> --
>
> The day Microsoft makes something that doesn't suck,
> is probably the day they start making vacuum cleaners...
>
>
didi