Update on the Zune "Z2K" fiasco

I was curious about the bug, and so I went to the "zunescene.com" website to see if they had anything to say about it. Right at the top of the home page is the following text:

"...Update 3: Any programming gurus out there may want to take a peek at the guilty source code and suggest a fix so this doesn't happen again in 4 years. Interestingly line 59 of the the code suggests Zune will cease to function in 2080 once and for all. Bummer."

I looked at the code, which is linked from that statement, and it appears that their analysis is correct. The software was deliberately written so that in the year 2080, the zune will cease to operate - for absolutely no reason other than that some bonehead at Microsoft decided to put in a check for a date way out in the future. Now, I don't know - there may be some issue with some bit of hardware or firmware that will cause the thing to fail - but I suspect not, because it probably wouldn't fail in exactly 100 years - and even if it did, it's not as though this check appears to invoke a graceful failure mode. It just bricks your device, for NO APPARENT REASON.

I can't believe that it's not actually criminal to sell a device that will purposefully brick itself and not divulge that information to buyers. Any thoughts? Anyone for taking up a class action case on behalf of all 12 Zune owners?

 

Re: your suggestion.

...a damn fine idea.

and although I was making a joke about the class action suit, I am still incredulous that someone could sell a product that is hardwired to become non-functional at a set time / date, without providing any notification to the purchaser. We're not talking about a bug, where someone was simply not thinking far enough ahead and an error condition occurs (e.g., Y2K compliance in apps written in the 1980s). This is a design decision that was specifically and positively incorporated in the device for no apparent practical reason except to cause it to stop working on a date certain.

No, I don't think that there's going to be a lot of disappointed Zune users 70 years from now. I expect that if there are any left, they'll be landfill or museum pieces - so maybe the curator of a museum will cry when his Zune fails. Still, it's just so wrong to program in a time bomb like that - it offends my sensibilities.