Devel update

[Chan Chung Hang Christopher]

> /me raises hand. But _please_ don't introduce another nonsense unit like 
> KB - it is _kB_ with lower case k.
>
>   
Haha, there is no set standard on that now is there? I mean, I see KG 
and kg for example. Or KM and km.

>> Hands up those who want Ubuntu to wait till there is an operating
>> system standard like POSIX that declares convention dead and
>> standards are in vogue.
>>     
>
> Someone has to make the first move. And Linux is already moving in the 
> right direction, the kernel uses binary prefixes for many years. Good 
> luck if you want to make all (or even only all Unix-like) operating 
> systems switch from bad habits to standards compliance. I'm not sure if 
> POSIX is relevant for the desktop at all. It may be important for the 
> command line to keep existing scripts working.
>   

Why should not posix be relevant for the desktop too? Maybe it won't 
cover everything on the desktop but at least having the command line 
utilities reporting sizes of bytes in one particular form and meaning 
would encourage desktop apps to follow suit and therefore not be a cause 
for confusion.

Existing scripts? Ha! No, if you are going to do this, you will have to 
blow everything out of the water. Existing documentation, scripts, 
everything. Existing scripts will have to be fixed. If not, then forget 
about the whole correct the units move.

> But your poll isn't really useful because you didn't ask the important 
> question: Should desktop applications display file size in decimal or 
> binary prefixes, i.e. should the application show "1013 MiB" or should 
> it rather show "1062 MB"?
>
>   

Ha! That, frankly, can be left up to the user's choice. If the user 
likes base2 kibibytes fine. If the user likes base 10 kilobytes, that is 
fine too. I don't care which one is used. All I care is that it be 
consistent across all operating systems. I don't want to have to work 
out whether they are using legacy KB or proper KB. (switching everything 
to KiB looks very workable at the moment...no confusion but won't solve 
the problem or worse, could lead to stagnation of correct the units and 
maybe even introduce KB = KiB thinking)