Dear Ed,

A very concerning legal issue.

We have seen many Millennium Century Date Change risks and legal issues being addressed by law practices worldwide to be mystified that one simple problem and legal issue still exists to be debated. The very term Millennium Compliant should ring a warning alarm to the legal analyst and to those advising the IT manufacturers..

1. It must be obvious that Millennium means a 1000 years, 2. Compliant means positive, agreeing, affirmative or acquiescent.

So to effectively state Millennium Compliant actually means compliant for a 1000 years.

Therefore any PC System that has a Year ceiling of 2099 can not be suggested as being Millennium Compliant as the life span within the 21st Century only 100 years. There also could be a problem concerning Software applications leading to some very interest legal scenarios.

To use the words Millennium Compliant concerning 21st Century Compliant Computer Systems could be dangerous for IT manufacturers wealth.

It is also thought that there are Trading Standard Acts and laws that are supposed to protect us all from this form deception? There of course if the other little problem that gives the consumer very little joy that is the statement: Year 2000 ready!

That in fact means that we can only trust a software application, hardware, or embedded system for to operate correctly, for one year only? Jasper Carrots (UK comedian)is going to have a field day, its is thought the best jokes are presently coming from the IT Industry. Maybe someone should enter this one into Peter De Jager http://Year2000.Com Millennium humor competition?

What are your feelings in this issue Ed

-- Tony (webmaster@Internet2000-Plc.com), December 03, 1998

Answers

The quote from Richard teh Third (I think) comes to mind ref Lawyers.

Are you staying up nights working on this type of query??

-- WHO (not@this.time), December 04, 1998.

No case can be brought for quite some time. By then all relevant documents and affected hardware will be dust.

Surely you jest.

-- Tom Carey (tomcarey@mindspring.com), December 08, 1998.

<< No case can be brought for quite some time. >>

Not so. There are already numerous Y2K cases being filed, and even decided. Check out Yahoo today of an example.

-- Paul Neuhardt (neuhardt@ultranet.com), December 08, 1998.

Last year Andrew Welcome and myself spent time on the original draft for UK Millennium Act at request of Rt Hon David Atkinson MP this was mainly to protect consumer against Y2K service providing companies disapearing within the year 2000 the act can be found somewhere at http://internet2000-Plc.com or on one of the other sites that sell Milsafe products Go Milsafe.

The issue is that to sue a company in UK can take up to 6 months, but it is known that by lobbying government Tel +44 (0)171 238 2000 or Fax +44 (0)171 2382006 David Cooke the Cabinet Office. The time could be cut down, all UK Businesses have the right to lobby on this issue.

The other point is the Millennium Pledge was introduced to stop the floods of business actually suing services providers, shortly after the 30th June 1998 Report Natural Time Progression. There is a rumour that just prior to February next year the UK trading standards are going to be warning many Y2K service providers to stop peddling un required services and software fixes. We also know that a similar line of events will be happening in at least 12 other countries.

Hopefully I have answered your questions

Regards

Bob

-- Bob Johnson-Perkins (Bob@Internet2000-Plc.com), December 08, 1998.