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the most headache inducing issues by far are going to be file formats and network protocols that integrate 32bit unix timestamps, which are numerous.

NTP is one such example.

This is a much worse and much more fundamental issue than the y2k bug was, I hope people aren't writing off the severity, the time to start dealing with it is now.




Agreed, it's pretty scary. On the other hand, I'm sure similar problems were tackled for y2k with the 2-digit fields everywhere. If we built it, we can rebuild it. Although a lot of software and hardware will need replacing/upgrading/switching over to new protocols.


They were, however, given that a lot of things have life in the field of several decades, now is the time to start fixing it so it doesn't become a mad rush. Yes, it means less money for devs 23 years from now as they madly rush to update software, but I'd rather that money be spent for devs to make future programs awesome than to worry about our ghosts.


NTP doesn't use unix timestamps but an other format. It will hit the bug 2 years earlier.


If I see the 2038 problem in a newspaper headline I think I'm going to take the closer fire exit.




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