On Fri, 7 Jan 2000 doug@springer.net wrote:
>In summary of the emails, some of which were kinda like
>referencing an uninitialized pointer was that if today were in the
>year 2038 we will have problems.
>
>Assuming that none of us are really true prophets, capable of
>foretelling the future, then the SAFE assumption is that if nothing is
>done, then in 2038 we will have machines accessing time_t
>variables as though they were 32 bit, hence Linux will have the
>2038 bug.
>
>That said, how do we fix it? Or is it something we just believe will
>fix itself? It sounds like it is both a kernel and a libc issue. It also
>seems to me that the easiest thing is to go to 64 bits.
>
>I am not doing libc or kernel development, so I don't believe I can
>own this one, though I am open to suggestions-any takers?
One problem I forsee with the "2k38 bug"(TM) is that people
assume that we will have to wait 38 years to see it. Any data at
all that uses time_t type will be limited to 2038 correct?
People always assume that the data stored in variables of type
time_t are todays date. Why is this the case? What if I write a
program that makes future predictions of something, or includes
data for future events? Granted, I'm smart enough to NOT use
time_t right now, but to use alternative means to deal with
infinite dates, but lets assume someone does create software that
uses time_t. Perhaps they generate star position data forecasts
for the next 15 years.. Then in 2023 they will have overflow
problems.
I think that the best time to work on this type of problem is
sooner than later. In 10 years it is likely everyone will mostly
be using Linux anyways. If we fix the problem NOW, we save the
trouble down the road. Especially with embedded systems.
I think is should be strongly considered to try to fix the
problem in 2.5.x - even if it needs to be a compile time or
runtime configureable thing.
That is my $0.02 anyways.
-- Mike A. Harris Linux advocate Computer Consultant GNU advocate Capslock Consulting Open Source advocateJoin the FreeMWare project - the goal to produce a FREE program in which you can run Windows 95/98/NT, and other operating systems.
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