I think many software engineers know that if you want to make any organization care about this type of issue, you need to be ready to demonstrate the severity and impact.
Even if the system boots properly, there's various critical systems that depend upon having the correct time. Say goodbye to things like HTTPS and SSL/TLS certificates.
There's two kinds of internet connected devices these days, those that keep getting updated and those that drift into incompatibility and die as the rest of the ecosystem evolves around them. If these supposed critical devices will still be in use in 12 years without any maintenance then they're unlikely to have any actual importance.
However, I’m not sure how you make a 2038 test environment
It assumes that the OS/Kernel etc… are defacto frozen to 2025 or whatever increment until 2038
What was the y2k solution for the people that implemented those fixes in the 90s?
It intercepts system calls to get the time and reports a fake time to the application.
Y2K showed that you don't need details beyond vague threats of "medication administered at the wrong time" and "planes falling out of the air" to get organizations and the public to care. No idea how that's going to tie into the conspiracy-heavy media landscape we inhabit now.
(Note I do think this is a serious issue that needs to be addressed. And I'd love to see specific examples. I'm just pushing back against the idea that examples would make much difference to advocacy efforts)
It was thankless work that is still glossed over and waved away today, but it was all a very big deal throughout the late 90s.
Mike Judge even made a movie about it! Office Space might be the most recognition turn of the millennium programmers will receive.
The latter is just a ripe plumb, left to rot in the backlog.
https://www.theregister.com/2020/04/02/boeing_787_power_cycl...
Seems to be unrelated at first look, but considering the complexities of systems, and cascading failure modes?