[R] Y2K compliance of R

[John Logsdon]

On Tue, 30 Mar 1999, Mai Zhou wrote:

> Hi, I was thinking to ask the University computing Labs here
> to install R and I was told they need a statement that the software (R)
> is Y2K compliant. Which I cannot find in CRAN. (in addition to the 
> licensing info). 
> 

Apart from Thomas' contribution, and the pass-the-buck mentality of many
computing departments (even in Universities, to their shame), if you mount
R on a Unix system (including Linux) then there are no real Y2K issues -
there is a Y2038 issue that will be solved by the 8 byte counter.  This is
because Unix/Linux maintains it's system time independently of the
hardware, currently in a 4 byte counter of seconds since 1970.  The
hardware clock is only used to compare times at shutdown/startup and by
the clock -w instruction which resets it from system time.

> Is it a big issue to put such a statement in R? or this has legal implications
> that R do not want as a "free" software? 
> 

Well one great advantage of R is that you can send them the source code so
they can look for themselves.  Try that with other products.

> If possible I would like to see the statement on both Unix AND Win version
> of R so I can ask them to "officially install" R on the labs machines.
> 

See above re Unix.  But presumably they haven't mounted some very well
known packages from Microsoft that are not yet Y2K compliant the last time
I looked at their web site.

Good luck with your quest.

> Mai Z
> 
> mai at ms.uky.edu
> http://www.ms.uky.edu/~mai/
> 
> -.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-
> r-help mailing list -- Read http://www.ci.tuwien.ac.at/~hornik/R/R-FAQ.html
> Send "info", "help", or "[un]subscribe"
> (in the "body", not the subject !)  To: r-help-request at stat.math.ethz.ch
> _._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._
> 

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-
r-help mailing list -- Read http://www.ci.tuwien.ac.at/~hornik/R/R-FAQ.html
Send "info", "help", or "[un]subscribe"
(in the "body", not the subject !)  To: r-help-request at stat.math.ethz.ch
_._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._