Devel update

[Nils Kassube]

Chan Chung Hang Christopher wrote without attribution:
> > /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.

Yes, there is [1], [2] - you were even talking about SI prefixes 
yourself in your previous mail :)

If you read somewhere "KG" or "KM" it is wrong in both cases or even 
double wrong in both cases because the unit for mass is "kg" and the 
unit for length with the prefix for 1000 is "km". I know that is 
pedantic, but if Ubuntu wants to move to correct use of units and 
prefixes it should not be half correct :)

> >> 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.

I probably should have written it in another way. With desktop I meant 
all those GUI applications like browser, spread sheet, word processing 
etc. which are tasks without the command line. As I understand it, those 
apps aren't covered by POSIX. At least the Wikipedia entry [3] only 
talks about APIs and CLI applications.

> > 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. 

Right, it would be nice to have the option to change the display 
according to user preference.

> 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. 

Sure, "consistent across all operating systems" would be nice but I 
don't expect that to happen within the next decade. IMHO a good start 
would be "consistent across _one_ operating system".

> 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)

I think KiB etc. is a good solution as a default display. That makes it 
clear to the (knowing) user which prefix is used. I would prefer to see 
decimal prefixes but unfortunately we never really know if it is correct 
use of decimal prefixes or misuse of decimal prefixes for binary 
multiples.


Nils

[1] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_System_of_Units>
[2] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SI_prefix>
[3] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/POSIX>