[ILUG] Linux's 2038 Bug

[Richard Eibrand]

On Sat, 07 May 2005 13:37:17 +0100, Paul O'Malley <ompaul at eircom.net>  
wrote:

> Richard Eibrand wrote:
>
>> Hi all,
>>
>>
>> Just read this article
>> http://us.rediff.com/money/2005/may/06linux.htm,  and was wondering
>> what peoples thoughts are with regards this problem.  Some more scare
>> mongering?
>>
>> Here is a snippet to get a gist,
>>
>> {snip}
>>
>> R
>>
> In the spirit of not agreeing with everything that is said:
> I do not concur that the article is FUD - it is a little alarmist,
> however I have five questions for you:

Paul, just to let you know that I agree with you. Not entirely fud, and  
alarmist, but alarmist in a niggly little sense, as in being alarmed to  
run out of toilet paper... But not so alarmed as to buy 5 tons of it to  
never run out of it entirely!

Saying that, I'll have a go at answering your questions

> (A) how much of todays technology will be use in 2038?
> less than 10% I would guess

I would probably say that a lower percentage of today's technology will be  
around then, just seeing the rate of technological developments in the  
past ten years. In essence very little of will be around

> (B) of that fictional 10% how much will actually have time_t in it?
> less than the 10%

Yep, I agree with you there also.

> (C) for any unit or device in that small grouping where time is
> measured, how often is it a function of day and date that exists there?
> Mostly time is a matter of seconds - so it is not still much of an issue

Again, I agree.

> (D) do you think that manafacutrers are not aware of this?
> I remember getting a video recorder in spring 1992 and it was able to
> run to do dates up to 2050 it is has already gone to the great recycling
> home in the sky

I am sure they are aware of this, and that measures are already in place  
to counteract the forecasted potential ill effects, and if not yet, that  
there will soon be measures in place to deal with this. That is my  
opinion, when I wrote the initial post, my idea was just to see if people  
has similar thoughts to my own on this, essentially that there is rather  
little to be worried about.

> (E) if you still think that the article is fud read this bit:
> "How can the problem be sorted? Modern Linux programs could use 64-bit
> or longer time_t data storage to overcome the problem. As for the
> existing systems, the way the C language stores time_t data could be
> changed and then all the programs could be recompiled. All this is
> easier said than done."

I never actually stated that the article was fud, per say, because tbh, I  
never knew the true meaning of actual word, I had a different  
interpretation of that word! Thanks to wikipedia though  
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FUD), I now know that my question actually  
did ask whether this article was fud. You learn something new everyday...  
Also learnt what Wintendo was all about  
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wintendo) ;)

> When 64bit is normal there will be people who will want to use 64bit
> apps on 32bit machines - so a patch will be made for the kernel.
>
> So what falls from all of this is as follows, in the rare case where the
> technology still exists and is operational in 33 years it may break in
> several ways, interesting or not someone will deal with it.

As I agreed with you earlier, the amount of time and technological  
advances that will happen between now and then, will and should override  
any such flaws in the current technological base we use on a day to day  
basis.

Thanks for your thoughts!

R

-- 
Richard Eibrand
http://eibrand.net
richard at eibrand.net