Comment 8 for bug 23426

i have been avoiding low level programming for a while, but i imagine this could
be due to gnome holding dates as unsinged numbers. prehaps making these signed
would allow gnome to boot with any date.

the question is 'should gnome boot if the date is set to before 1970?' one could
argue that it is a bug that gnome won't work in this date range, but as it will
never be run in that date range does it matter? is there a legitimate reason
that someone would want their clock set to < 1970?

if this an easy fix it may as well be done, if not then a warning would be good.

can anyone confirm on x86?