Actually there are reasons why Microsoft systems cannot handle the changeover as well as Linux based systems. The biggest is that the Windows API cannot perform the conversion between local time and UTC as at some other point in time. So, for example, if, come Monday, you look at the date of this email from a Windows system, the email will appear to have been sent 1 hour earlier than it appears to have been sent today. This is because the Windows system will convert the UTC date (or equivalent) stored in the email to AEST. It will not recognise that in fact AEDT applied at the time of the message.
This can be an annoying thing to have to explain to a judge, especially when you have an email chain in evidence, and it appears on first glance to be out of order. Linux systems do not suffer from that problem. Moreover, the data format of the time zone information is well published so that applications can be written to deal with other complications that can arise. With Windows the information is super secret. Also, Windows only records time zone changeover information by means of a single rule - it does not record historical changes by year as the TZInfo database used on Linux does. That is why for the year 2000 in Sydney (with the 1-of early change to AEDT for the Olympics) Windows users had to install a new time zone, change their system to that time zone, then change it back for the following year. Another unwanted side effect is that at changeover time, the modification date of every file on the system, when converted to local time, appears to change by an hour. Again Linux will apply the offset applicable at the relevant time, rather than the current offset. This deficiency in Windows is truly painful when writing software that attempts to do things on a timed schedule. There are some problems that simply cannot be worked around. Even installing and using the TZInfo database will not help, since the result will vary from what Windows would have done. Perhaps you could create your own database of Windows time zone changes, and hope and pray that the user updated the time zones and the patches at all the right times, but you would most likely be swapping one error for another. Having had way too much experience writing software for Windows that had to deal with time zones, and also had rather more positive experience writing software for Linux that had to deal with time zones, I can vouch for the fact that Linux does it many, many times better than Windows. If you are using Windows for servers where time ordering is relatively critical, you may well have no real option other than to shut the servers down during the transition. Regards, Troy Rollo Solicitor Parry Carroll Commercial Lawyers Direct: (02) 8257 3177 Fax: (02) 9221 1375 Switch: (02) 9221 3899 E-mail: t...@parrycarroll.com.au Web: www.parrycarroll.com.au <http://www.parrycarroll.com.au> Liability limited by a scheme approved under Professional Standards Legislation This message and any attachments are confidential to Parry Carroll. If you have received it my mistake, please let us know by reply and then delete it from your system. You must not copy the message, alter it or disclose its contents to anyone. Thank you. -----Original Message----- From: slug-boun...@slug.org.au [mailto:slug-boun...@slug.org.au] On Behalf Of Jeff Waugh Sent: Thursday, 1 April 2010 3:27 PM To: slug@slug.org.au Subject: Why so snooty? Re: [SLUG] Which bank doesn't use Linux servers? <quote who="Rick Welykochy"> > Similar for Westpac: "Online Banking will be unavailable due to > scheduled maintenance from 02:50 to 04:15 AEST on Sunday 4 April 2010." > Another one not using Linux. Not sure what Linux has to do with this -- there's far more going on (with dates and times especially) in a complex stack of software than just the OS. Consider the amount of legacy software and multi-system integration involved in a bank's computing environment. Sorry dudes, but this just sounds like Open Source snootiness from the small end of town. Seriously, just look at half the MySQL-based Open Source applications around you... Example: WordPress only gained automagically updating named timezones (rather than manual offsets) in 2.7 or 2.8. Fat load of good "Linux" [1] did in that case. - Jeff [1] It's not like you're talking about the Linux kernel here, either. -- The Great Australian Internet Blackout http://www.internetblackout.com.au/ I wonder how many bugs have gone unfixed due to misspellings of "FIXME". -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
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