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I left programming work in 1985, and even then we were talking about the changes needed for the millennium. The problem has been clear for a long time. I think that most of the responsibility should be on the programmers and analysts. If any of the systems I am currently working on fail it would be my responsibility not the governments.
Stephen Longley, Finland

Governments should not spend any money maintaining antiquated programs and equipment. Millions of lines of unstructured code are almost impossible to modify. It will cost only slightly more to install new systems and write entirely new code. Given the power of modern programming tools, it may even be faster. Out with the old - in with the new.
John Evans, USA

Governments should take the lead. They need to put Public Sector systems right and advertise what they are doing. Most people still either don't know about the problem or think it's just hype.
Paul Mason, UK

When you last wrote a cheque, did you put '98 or '1998' for the date ?? That's the problem.... as an IT Consultant, how can I be certain that every time I wrote some code this decade I used four digits for the year ? This problem is not just related to old software, there are a lot of software applications still in use which either don't fail if two digits are used, or in some cases won't yet even allow the use of four digit dates. The IT industry is taking a very responsible attitude.....this is a very real issue.....it's not hype.
Andrew Cash MBCS, UK

People should not turn their noses up at what could possibly be the greatest challenge of the computer age. Government needs to move quickly to raise public and corporate awareness and implement a policy that will protect themselves and companies from the potentially huge data losses. Ask yourself if your VCR were to stop calculating the date how inconvenient it would be and then apply this to your National Insurance or Tax affairs and then criticize extent of the problem.
Mark Solway, UK

First there was Taskforce 2000 led by Mr Gunier who complained it was underfunded. Now we have Action 2000 led by Cruikshank with a budget of GBP 1m. The government spent GBP 20 million on the first AIDS campaign. The disparity is unbelievable. The health and safety threat from embedded systems is real and underestimated. I can but assume that the GBP 370m set aside is for the legal liability of the British Government come 2/1/2000. It cannot be based on costings for the Y2K problem, since all reports suggest that they haven't completed their impact analysis yet.
Nadja Whyte, England

Here's the problem, they (governments) can't do enough whether or not they want to. There will be turmoil in financial and other computer systems that we take for granted in everyday life, but, as your article states it will be a disruption and nothing more. The millenium bug is a problem society will take in its stride when the clock ticks over, and deal with it. We human beings are resilient that way.
Jehan Manekshaw, India

Being involved in the training of programmers, we make them fully aware of the inpact of the date change. We concentrate on the COBOL code that will feel the impact most greatly. It is not so much governments that need to combat this problem, but the companies who need to update their code.
Mark Thomas, Australia

I am working for a company that has devoted significant resources to ensuring our own internal computer systems and those run for our clients are year 2000 compliant. I really don't know what the government is supposed to do. Everyone in the industry has been aware of this issue for at least 10 years and many have chosen to ignore it . No doubt they will want the government to bail them out for their own failings but this should not happen.
Every industry journal devotes pages to the Y2K issue and the web has thousands of sites with suppliers offering their wares to all who want them. The sure way to ensure companies get their act together is to stop doing business with those that are not making an effort.
Trevor Anderson, N.Ireland

The question of whether the year 2000 issue is a government one is unclear. Obviously the government must (like all other organizations) ensure that it's systems are year 2000 compliant, but the majority of the issues concern private companies who must get their act together.
The realities are starting to hit home already. The majority of new credit cards issued this year, bear year 2000 expiry dates. I saw at the weekend, a machine here in The Netherlands reject a transaction because the card expired in year 2000.
How can the government be expected to educate companies like credit card suppliers, whose livelihoods are based on executing transactions, when they themselves are prepared to turn away business through their own lack of commercial forethought?
Is it the government's responsibility to teach companies how not to lose potential business and cause damage to their customers?
Peter Ambrose, The Netherlands

The reason that industry is complaining about the lack of adequate provision of resources to tackle the problem is not because they want the tax payer to shoulder their costs. Rather they are concerned about the failure of government owned infrastructure. It's no good industry sorting its problems out if their staff can't get to work because the traffic control computers have gone down, or the inland revenue, social security, health service etc.. all of whose computers are required by private industry. So what is to stop industry from taking legal action against the government should the whole lot go a little bit 'wonky' on Jan 1st 2000?
If you live in London it won't be a problem, because they'll be the great white tent at Greenwich to wonder around whilst they sort out the traffic lights - Excellent priorities, spend £800m on some tent or £200m as the ex-dome chief claims he could do an exhibition for and spend the £600m change on ensuring the NHS computers don't fail and people don't die.
One doubts the latter will occur, spending cash on vital services wouldn't be quite as good an ego trip for the Minister without Portfolio as spewing some drivel that a great big plastic tent represents Britain's vision of the Millenium.
J. Gilmour, UK

What is the government(s) supposed to do?. They can hardly check every microchip in the country, so it's really down to the companies that own the equipment to make sure anything important is not affected.
Matthew Bennett, England

Huge amounts of money will be made out of this issue in the next two years by companies and individuals within the Information Technology industry. Because of this, there is a great deal of hype as 'experts' spring up to predict doom. The fact is that people within the I.T. business have always known about the potential problem. The sensible companies, such as the one I work for, have been planning to make their products year 2000 compliant for ages and will be ready in plenty of time (mid-1998 in our case). The real problem is with the older computer systems which in many cases are no longer supported by those who originally produced them. There are many millions of lines of such programs, often totally undocumented, where no-one knows if they will work after the milennium or not. This is where the major part of the problem actually lies, not with the software currently on the market. Sure, there will be problems in 2000 but NOT on the scale that the scaremongers predict.
Neil Tonks, UK

Many people are looking at the problem, but it seems that while programmers are getting paid over the odds for this, many techies, although working just as hard on hardware etc, are being paid peanuts.
Steve, UK

I think it's not just important for each government to look after their own systems. There should be some sort of body set up to ensure that everyone is doing their part. For example, who is going to provide the funding to allow developing countries to check and fix their systems - after all, fixing the problem requires more money than most people realise. In fact, with computing being a relatively 'new' technology, most people aren't aware of its wide ranging effects.
Shane Kelly, N.Ireland

Canada is just waking up to the fact that the government has screwed up on this issue royally - as usual.
Roy, Canada

If Labour's Millenium bug problems are anything like their Millenium Dome problems then the whole country is doomed!
Stuart Townsend, England

I have been a computer programmer for nearly ten years. There's a lot of hype surrounding this. A lot of people are trying to make a fast buck out of it. But many UK companies will collapse, major areas of infrastructure are likely to collapse worldwide at least for a time - in my view. Wake up UK business.
Chris Brooksbank,UK

Put it this way. Virtually every cash machine in Britain will have to be replaced. How many have been replaced thus far? I know people who are trying to solve these problems and they have quite clearly stated, 'that for many companies, it is already too late.' This could cause the biggest financial crash ever known. Mortgages will be affected, some pension companies cannot do any calculations after the year two thousand. I wonder why???? I just get the feeling that we are deliberately waiting for a disaster to happen. Then will come a perfect opportunity for governmental and financial super powers to arise. HuMMMMMM.
Chris Wickland, England

The burden for fixing the Millenium Bug should fall on the incompetent companies who have installed software or hardware unable to cope with what was after all a wholly predictable problem. It is ridiculous that the government should be spending so much money when it is clear who is at fault.
Martin McGrath, UK

The problem is that we won't know whether we did enough until midnight on 1 January 2000
Gerard M. Davison, UK

The argument that says: The only people who say that the government has done too little , are the companies with financial interests in solving "Millenium Bug" problems" may be true but, can we really afford to be this complacent? SO many of today's essential services (from banks to telecoms to health care systems) run on computers that might be affected in one way or another. Finding out if your computer system can cope with the year 2000 is not just a matter of typing in the date 1-1-2000. It is far more subtle and complex than that. When it comes to the "Millenium bug" I think that we cannot be too careful. Our LIVES truly do depend on it.
Maarten 't Hooft, United Kingdom

I cannot believe, with the money to be made if one finds the "solution", that this dilemma will not be solved. I am concerned that a great deal of the hype being generated is so huge amounts of money can be charged to "fix" the problem. Especially for those with personal computers and small business.
Lynda Wright Love, USA/Wales

Yes, the government is doing all, it can possibly do with today's technology. Obviously enough, when the technology improves in the next few months, a strong solution will be found to fix the millennium bug...
Sulove Bothra, India

I have known about the millennium bug some time and it seems as though the government has been rather slow on the uptake. The potential scale of the problem is huge and there are only two years to sort the mess out in. The government could have done more much earlier, in particular, preventing the sale of millenium sensitive software and hardware (ie. software and hardware which will be affected). The government had a responsibility to notify everyone as soon as the problem was recognised, instead a number of companies do not understand how they will be affected, especially small businesses.
Ross Wells, United Kingdom

What the government has done in Britain is fine. As a computer user I'm well aware of the problem, in part due to the government's campaign, and I have taken steps to make sure that I'm not affected by the bug.
Jonathan Pann, Norfolk, UK

There's no way the government should bow to all the hype. The only people who are making a fuss are those with a vested interest in handling the bug. Where's the £370m going? You can bet companies who fix the problem aren't trying to cool the hype.
Petra Miles, London, England

Very few people are doing "all they can". Even if the problem is over-estimated, chaos will rain if we sit back and let it. It's not a hoax. In times of war, we need to fight together against a common enemy - in this case:TIME.
Darrin Salt, UK

The government needs to sort out only its own systems, let private companies and individuals worry about theirs. If we get the nanny state too worked up over this they'll ban the millenium.
M. Brimacombe, UK

The theory that I subscribe to is that we will all be too inebriated on 1/1/2000 to care!
Roger Luff, UK

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