Testing Linux and Open Source for Y2K

Stephen Hurrell asks: "I'm interested in getting feedback about how people and/or sites running Linux with all the usual applications like apache, samba, perl, php, jdk's, postgresql, oracle, X, etc. are handling the Y2K problem. Particularly how they are Y2K testing and communicating results in order to ease management's open source concerns. What do you do and what did you find? There may be a silver lining in Linux that in fact most applications may be using UNIX time structures and that the open source community may be able to respond quicker than Brand M for patches and fixes. Hopefully this may result in increased trust and usage of open source products. What do you think?"

Comments

Interesting question...

[selectap]

I was looking up some documentation on Apache's site last night and I think I did see a Y2K statement out of the corner of my eye. I was wondering about Y2K myself, especially since I just set up Redhat 6.1 as my primary workstation at work (in a Windows enviornment) I suppose that with Open source and so many eyeballs looking at the code daily, I'm sure that all of the Y2K bugs have been taken care of. For the major vendors, a quick visit to their web site should clarify what versions are compliant (for instance, Redhat claims 5.2 and above are compliant). As for the other non-commercial smaller scale projects, I don't know...

Red Hat paid for independent testing

[Booker]

If you want to point to outside certification, take a look at http://www.redhat.com/legal/y2k_statement.html

In it, they say:

We are pleased to disclose that the core system components of Red Hat Linux, versions 5.2 and 6.0, on Intel architecture have been independently certified as Year 2000 compliant.

and they define "core" as:

1.Commands

after
at
hwclock
convdate
crontab
date
ftpshut
ls
rdate
sleep
touch
usradd
hwclock
telnet
ftp

2.Daemons

httpd
ftpd
telnetd
inted
atd
crond

3.libc

strptime
asctime
gmtime
mktime
int time_t
struct tm

Not exactly the entire distribution... but at least most of the time-related functions...
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Heh

[FascDot Killed My Pr]

About 2 years ago I asked about Y2k and Linux on linux-newbie. Here's a rough paraphrase of how someone responded:

Me: Is Linux Y2k?
Random l-n Person: Linux is based on UNIX which uses time_t and is good for 40 more years.
Me: Yes, I know that, but what about the apps?
RLNP: Apps should use time_t.
Me: Yes, "should". Do they? Furthermore, what about stored dates?
RLNP: If a programmer has not used time_t or has stored a date incorrectly, they are stupid.
Me: Yes, I know that. That's what we want to test. AAAAAAaaagghghghghghghghghhhhhhh
---

"It doesn't matter...

[Royster]

whether the programs are compliant, because the humans using them are not!"

A quote from the Perl Y2K Statement.