What are Lilian Days?

If you've ever used the CEEDATE() or CEEDAYS() API's on the iSeries you know that they both reference a parameter called "Lilian Days". In case you're curious, it's named after Aloisius Lilius who was an adviser to Pope Gregory XIII and an important developer of the Gregorian Calendar.

What I found most interesting (in the geeky sense) is that the concept of Lilian Days was invented by an Ib'm high priest named Bruce G. Ohms when his article "Computer Processing of Dates Outside the Twentieth Century" was published in the Ib'm Systems Journal, Volume 25, in 1986.

HTTP Group PTF SF99114 level 19 is Released on the Heels of Level 18.

Group PTF levels don't come out all that often. The HIPER group is every two weeks, but the other groups are every couple of months at least. Whenever a new version of a group PTF comes out on the heals of an earlier version it usually means that the high priests in Mecca (aka Rochester, MN) are correcting some kind of unforeseen problem. Sometimes they add a new PTF but more often than not they remove some PTF's. Always without explanation.

Last Friday our Lord Ib'm came out with level 18 of the V5R4 HTTP group PTF SF99114 and yesterday they issued level 19. In so doing they removed two PTF's from the group: 5722DG1-SI35431 and SI35432. The PTFs haven't been PE'ed, but I'm not sure whether or not I'm going to install them. On the one hand these two PTFs update the Apache server to the latest level (2.0.63) and fix a security problem (CVE-2008-2939). On the other hand it might cause other problems that our Lord Ib'm has seen fit not to reveal to us.