Ubuntu Policy: prefixes for multiples of units

[Luke L]

> I as a somewhat technical inclined user would expect powers of 2 to be
> used everywhere.
>
> A naive user who doesn't know anything about this issue, will still
> expect that KB, MB and so on always mean the same thing.
>
> I think the cost of inconsistency once between info on hardware purchase
> and what the system says is much less of an issue than continued
> inconsistency within the system.
>
>
> Oh, and the kibi/mebi thing will never catch on if OSes don't use it.
> Chicken and egg.
>
>
> --
> Thorsten Wilms

I agree in that the marketing dept. is irrelevant. We should put down
what is factual. If a hard drive has a capacity of 298 "GiB" (what my
"320GB" reports as), it should show up that way. Capacities should be
shown in terms of how many bytes a device holds, not what an ignorant
salesman or info box says it has.

On the subject of prefixes: Someone has to start it. While I
personally don't like the way gibibit, mibibit, yibibit, etc. rolls
off the tongue, it is more accurate for our purposes.


-- 
Luke L.