Re: [PATCH] Display binary prefix filesizes instead of decimal prefix filesizes (344296)

[Raphael Bosshard <bosshrap zhwin ch>]

Hello there!

> For what its worth I very much agree with Patrick. The binary prefixes
> are silly and nobody but anal-retentive ultra-geeks will understand
> them, thus confusing the general userbase (who haven't seen them
> before).

Well, that's strange. I never considered myself a "anal-retentive
ultra-geek". And I certainly never thought that my sister would fit into
the category of "anal-retentive ultra-geeks". And yet she was the one
who brought up the topic when we upgraded her computer with a new hard
disk last week. The disk was labeled "250 Gigabyte". Yet when we
installed it,"only" 238 Gigabytes were available. I explained her that
the disk manufacturer interpreted the term "Giga" in a other way then
the software manufacturer. Being an "anal-retentive ultra-geek", she was
bothered by this.

My sister is by no means a technical person. But to her european
decimalised mind "Kilo" means "a thousand" and not "a thousand and
twenty four", just in the way that "Mega" means "a million" and not "one
million four hundred forty nine thousand six hundred sixteen".

It doesn't bother me, mind you. I know that in IT "Giga" doesn't mean
"Giga". But I always thought that only "anal-retentive ultra-geeks" know
that and I recently noticed it confuses the the general userbase (who
haven't heard of that before).

The strange thing is that almost everyone seems to agree (even Patrick)
that binary prefixes are a good Idea. However; everyone seems to wait
with the adaption of binary prefixes until everyone around has adapted
them. Funny thing.

I see no need to bother the documentation team; there is to much
resistance against binary prefixes.

So long,
Raphael