Re: [gtk-list] A "dumb" question needs an answer.. Y2K??

[Erik Mouw <J A K Mouw its tudelft nl>]

On Mon, 08 Nov 1999 10:36:19 -0500, Marc wrote:
> Background:
> 
>   We make use of the gimp where I work.  My employer is 
>   threatening to force its removal if I cannot show it to
>   be fully Y2K compliant.  I have pointed them to the 
>   "unofficial" Y2K compliant gimp site and that seemed
>   to please them, but now they are telling me that they will
>   be removing glib, gtk, and the jpeg libraries since they can't
>   find any information relating to their Y2K compliance.  I 
>   have tried to explain to them that these things are graphics
>   libraries and don't really manipulate dates in any way, but
>   they are steadfast for removing them.

Hmm, sadly enough your employer seems to believe in the Y2K FUD. Ask your
employer if there is something mission critical built around Gimp. What
will happen if Gimp is not Y2K compliant? Will it seriously threaten your
company? If not, there is no reason to worry.

> What I'd Like:
> 
>   I'd appreciate it if someone/developer could send me a 
>   statement I can use as ammunition in reversing their desire
>   to remove this software.  Or possibly a web page specifically
>   mentioning this software as being Y2K compliant.

OK, you *have* the source. So what's easier than doing your own Y2K audit?
First find all files which do date manipulations:

  find . -name "*.[ch]" -exec grep time {} /dev/null \;

Now check those files and see what happens with the dates. The normal Unix
time functions are Y2K compliant, so as long as the Gimp/GTK/Glib/jpeg
sources don't do anyhing special with the date, nothing will go wrong.

If you don't want to do a Y2K audit, just set the computer's clock to
31-dec-1999-23:59, start Gimp and see what happens.

Also have a look at http://www.gnu.org/software/year2000.html . 


Erik

-- 
J.A.K. (Erik) Mouw, Information and Communication Theory Group, Department
of Electrical Engineering, Faculty of Information Technology and Systems,
Delft University of Technology, PO BOX 5031,  2600 GA Delft, The Netherlands
Phone: +31-15-2785859  Fax: +31-15-2781843  Email J.A.K.Mouw@its.tudelft.nl
WWW: http://www-ict.its.tudelft.nl/~erik/