From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: from smtp1.linuxfoundation.org (smtp1.linux-foundation.org [172.17.192.35]) by mail.linuxfoundation.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id CFF4021 for ; Fri, 9 May 2014 22:33:28 +0000 (UTC) Received: from relay6-d.mail.gandi.net (relay6-d.mail.gandi.net [217.70.183.198]) by smtp1.linuxfoundation.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id 4E388201AE for ; Fri, 9 May 2014 22:33:28 +0000 (UTC) Date: Fri, 9 May 2014 15:33:15 -0700 From: Josh Triplett To: Arnd Bergmann Message-ID: <20140509223315.GA5725@thin> References: <5367D989.1000504@linaro.org> <1399581426.11946.12.camel@deadeye.wl.decadent.org.uk> <20140509151043.GC15523@thunk.org> <4440149.cMfuUKn6MV@wuerfel> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <4440149.cMfuUKn6MV@wuerfel> Cc: John Stultz , ksummit-discuss@lists.linuxfoundation.org Subject: Re: [Ksummit-discuss] [CORE TOPIC] Dealing with 2038 List-Id: List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , On Fri, May 09, 2014 at 10:39:13PM +0200, Arnd Bergmann wrote: > On Friday 09 May 2014 11:10:43 Theodore Ts'o wrote: > > On Thu, May 08, 2014 at 09:37:06PM +0100, Ben Hutchings wrote: > > > > > > LFS is far from universally supported by applications, 17 years after it > > > was standardised. In fact, many applications recently regressed due to > > > a broken test for LFS in autoconf . It > > > doesn't seem like a good example to follow. > > > > Yes, that was my point. > > > > > However this is done, almost every library that includes time_t in its > > > API will change ABI. I say 'almost' because glibc will probably use > > > symbol versioning or mangling to maintain binary compatibility, but most > > > library maintainers won't go to that trouble. > > > > Agreed. This is why I'm not sure anything other than a hard ABI break > > is realistic. Yes, it's incredibly painful, and the distro's will > > probably be very unhappy, but I suspect the alternatives are worse. > > The only real question is do we start trying to deal with the pain > > now, or in 2020, or in 2030, or 2035, or even worse, in 2037.... > > > > Given what what I saw with Y2K, if I was going to participate in a > > betting pool on the question, I'd probably put my money down for 2035 > > or so. :-/ > > I think an important distinction is that the majority of systems that > will be seriously affected are embedded machines, which run a custom > user space anyway. > > x86-32 PCs and end-user distros are going to be largely extinct > in a couple of years and replaced by x64-64 or arm64 depending > on who you ask, and arm32 Android phones are going to be > replaced with arm64 hardware shortly after, or they see an ABI > break before then anyway. > The typical embedded machines don't even use glibc, and they > cross-build everything from source. In particular, even systems that want some of the properties of 32-bit on 64-bit hardware can use x32; the concern is with new systems that don't support 64-bit at all. Hence why we need to solve the problem *today*, so that the devices we're building in the next few years will survive 2038. - Josh Triplett