[AustLII] [Databases] [WorldLII] [Feedback] [Help]	Related Links
	AustLII's Year 2000 Readiness	About AustLII Disclaimers Year 2000 Information Disclosure Act 1999 (Cth)
You are here: AustLII >> About AustLII >> AustLII's Year 2000 Readiness

Year 2000 Readiness

A number of people and organisations have enquired about AustLII's potential vulnerability to the "Year 2000 Problem", also known in computing circles as the "Y2K problem". If you're reading this you probably already understand the significance of the turn of the century for some computers and their applications. If you do not know, you might like to see y2k.com for some background information.

What follows is some discussion about the extent to which AustLII's services may be disrupted by computer problems caused by the turn of the century. It is important to note, that this is not a guarantee of any kind. For reasons outlined below, AustLII is not able to certify Y2K compliance for any of its services -- our Standard Disclaimers apply.

Operating Platform

AustLII's primary and secondary web servers are based on the Sun Ultra Sparc chip. The Sun servers are running Solaris 2.6. Sun reports that Solaris 2.6 is Y2K compliant. More information is available from Sun's Year 2000 Information Site, which includes certification and readiness information for Sun products.

Some readers may be aware that UNIX systems such as Solaris have a date problem similar to Y2K, in which system clocks will revert to 1 Jan 1970 after the year 2038. This will not be a problem on the new 64-bit hardware. The new 64-bit Solaris 7 system has been released by Sun already. AustLII plans to upgrade to Solaris 7 well before 2038.

Desktop PCs used by AustLII staff are currently being audited for Y2K readiness by the UTS Law computer support staff.

Software Support

AustLII makes extensive use of the programming language Perl. You can read about Perl's Y2K status at the Perl language home pages. The summary is that Perl does not have a problem with year-2000 dates, any more than the C programming language upon which Perl is built. While it is, of course, possible to write buggy software in any language, Perl itself does not have problems with dates beyond 1999.

The C compiler (GNU C) used by AustLII should also have no problems with year 2000 dates before 2038. After 2038, the system date on 32-bit UNIX systems may revert to 1 Jan 1970 (the "UNIX epoch"). However this problem can be avoided by migrating to 64-bit hardware and software. AustLII's current upgrade path includes this migration.

Developed Software

Most of AustLII's software has been developed in-house. Andrew Mowbray's SINO search engine uses internal date routines which can handle dates in the range 100 AD - 5772085 AD.

AustLII's web spider for indexing remote sites uses dates when checking if an indexed page has changed since the last index. The HTTP 1.0 specification used two digit years in its standard date format. The new HTTP 1.1 standard rectifies this. Some web server vendors have moved to using four digit years. The libwww library upon which AustLII's web spider is built will recognise both date formats, but is standards compliant when connecting to servers.

Conversion software and tools, such as rtftohtml are not supposed to attempt to interpret dates and so should avoid Y2K bugs.

Data Providers and Third Party Dependencies

AustLII is unable to say whether or not its data providers will be able to continue to give data feeds beyond 1 Jan 2000. Obviously, if a provider is experiencing computer problems, they will not be able to send AustLII their data for publication on the web.

In addition AustLII is unable to say whether or not all routers and gateways between AustLII's subnet and the outside world are able to continue functioning beyond 1 Jan 2000. In particular, readers should be aware that no power company has yet been able to guarantee electricity supply after 2000.

Summary

The software on which AustLII is based is either Y2K compliant (Solaris 2.6) or Y2K ready (SINO). While unable to guarantee service in the new millennium, AustLII does not expect disruptions to machines under its control due to the Y2K bug. AustLII service is far more likely to be disrupted by funding cuts long before then...

Disclaimer