“The year 2000 problem (Y2K) has been made worse by restrictive
licensing practices which are now common among software vendors,
according to Richard Stallman, founder of the GNU Free Software
Foundation.”
“The Y2K problem mostly affects older software programs which
use a two-digit date field instead of today’s four-digit date
field. Computer programs using a two-digit date field may not know
whether “00” means 1900 or 2000, which could cause them to
malfunction or shut down on Jan. 1, 2000.”
“Stallman, whose GNU project provided much of the software which
eventually became the Linux Unix-like operating system, said that
the idea of proprietary software is relatively new, and is bad for
both business and society as a whole.”