On Mon, Dec 01, 2014 at 12:43, Dmitrij D. Czarkoff wrote: > Janne Johansson said: >> There is quite a bit of difference between changing the storage format and >> making some dates "impossible" that previously did work. > > Don't think so. Something got changed, things got broken and need to be > fixed. The only real question is: is the change worth the trouble. I > think it is, although unanimous negative reaction hints that I am > probably missing something important. >
Fixing time_t did not suddenly make OpenBSD systems unable to communicate with other systems with other time_t sizes. It was an implementation detail, but the various protocols and formats that embed dates and times in them were not changed. Your proposed change changes an important protocol: the one that lets me save files I receive from others to my filesystem. When I can no longer save web pages or email attachments and send them back to the sender with the same name, you have broken the protocol. You may also think of it this way. 64-bit time_t permitted more times to be represented. Long after the tar format itself cannot handle the current date, I will still be able to unpack old existing archives. You are proposing that *fewer* filenames be represented. My existing archives with forbidden filenames will no longer work.
