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Date:      Thu, 21 Feb 2002 03:44:16 +0000
From:      Dima Dorfman <null@trit.org>
To:        Giorgos Keramidas <keramida@ceid.upatras.gr>
Cc:        Michael Wardle <michael.wardle@adacel.com>, doc@freebsd.org
Subject:   Re: inconsistent use of data units 
Message-ID:  <20020221034421.AE58A3E35@bazooka.trit.org>
In-Reply-To: <20020221003116.GA11893@hades.hell.gr>; from keramida@ceid.upatras.gr on "Thu, 21 Feb 2002 02:31:16 %2B0200"

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Giorgos Keramidas <keramida@ceid.upatras.gr> wrote:
> On 2002-02-21 10:53, Michael Wardle wrote:
> > Hi.
> > 
> > There is a standard on how to represent data sizes here:
> > http://physics.nist.gov/cuu/Units/binary.html
> > 
> > I suggest that the document is updated to consistently use this standard.
> 
> Reading that page, all I have to say is "NO.  Good grief, no."
> Mebibit ?  Kibibit ?  Ye gods.

I hate to add fuel to the fire, but I think Knuth's proposal on this
topic at least deserves mention:
http://www-cs-faculty.stanford.edu/~knuth/news99.html (scroll down to
"What is a kilobyte?").  I think the only down side to this is that it
isn't a ratified standard--oh well.

I'm not going to fight long and hard (read: at all) for this or any of
the other proposals.  I'll be content with anything as long as it's
used consistently and our rationale for choosing it--regardless of
what "it" is, since there's no de facto standard--is documented
somewhere.


P.S.  There was a thread on linux-kernel late last year about this.
If you're one who wishes to fight to the death over the issue, please
read that thread; the time you save may be your own.

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