Re: LYNX-DEV Year 2000 Compliance

[Larry W. Virden, x2487]

Re: whether asking about lynx's year 2000 compliance is getting out of hand

I guess it all depends on the use of lynx, doesn't it?

If you mean 'will use of lynx as an interactive browser of the WWW cause
a company serious financial ramifications if it fails in the year 2000',
I suspect that, in many cases the answer to that would be no.

But let's consider the following hypothetical cases where it might
cause financial ramifications.

1. A company providing internet access via lynx to paying customers.
While I don't know of anyone doing this specifically, I know of at least
one site providing free access to the internet with lynx being the interface -
I am merely projecting from that the possibility that someone could
provide the same interface for a fee, however small.

2. A company uses perl's CPAN interface to install urgent patches (to fix
year 2000 problems for instance).  At least one of the configuration
possibilities here is that CPAN uses lynx to download new modules.  If
lynx no longer works, then sites depending solely on that interface
would not be able to download the patches necessary to fix the problem.

3. A company uses other scripts to download or upload files, which of
course could be for any number of purposes, including containing
(encrypted of course) daily payroll info, etc.

I can see where a company in one of these situations would want some
sort of assurance that someone had looked at the code to see if there
were any anticipated, or in fact proven (how tough is it to set a test
machine's time to Jan 1 2000 and run lynx to see if there's a problem)
problem and if a strategy to fix said problem in the next 22 months had
been set.

It seems to me that this issue would be considered by companies MORE critical
in the free software domain, since there are few legally binding requirements
that such changes are made and few ramifications if the changes are not
made in a timely manner.  In the case of vendor software, one has the
potential recourse of refusing to pay maintenance fees, presidents or
CIOs, etc. communicating, or even heaven forbid lawyers talking to
lawyers.

-- 
Larry W. Virden                 INET: address@hidden
<URL:http://www.teraform.com/%7Elvirden/> <*> O- "We are all Kosh."
Unless explicitly stated to the contrary, nothing in this posting should 
be construed as representing my employer's opinions.