Message-ID: <3C234CC100020E25@mta13n.bluewin.ch> (added by
	    postmaster@bluewin.ch)
From: "Per Jessen" <per@computer.org>
To: "linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org" <linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org>
Date: Fri, 21 Dec 2001 20:55:52 +0100
Reply-To: "Per Jessen" <per@computer.org>
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Subject: Re: Changing KB, MB, and GB to KiB, MiB, and GiB in	Configure.help.
Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org

On Fri, 21 Dec 2001 11:43:40 -0600, Bob Glamm wrote:

>On Fri, Dec 21, 2001 at 03:48:22PM +0000, Mike Jagdis wrote:
[snip]
>> Go look up "SI binary prefix" and "SI prefix" on Google. You might
>> not _like_ the binary prefixes (I don't either) but they're what's
>> been standardized and they're unambiguous. It does no good to claim
>> that it's enough that *you* know what you mean. This isn't Alice in
>> Wonderland (you can look that reference up in your spare time :-) ).
>
>SI standards have been around for years.  Yet many mechanical
>engineers in the US still use English units.  Convention and
>economics dictate that they do so; any change in this field is quite
>slow.

Did the US ever go metric ? Europe (minus the UK of course) did, and rarely
looked back. AFAIK (please correct me), the US never went metric. Don't they
still use Fahrenheit and all that weird stuff ?
Oh, and btw - those non-metric units are not "English units", but "Imperial units", 
if you want to picky :-) 

>
>Somehow I expect that the same convention and economics factors will
>also dominate the argument over prefixes for bits of information
>in this field for years to come as well.

That I agree with - although I suspect manufacturers increasing will go for
the IEC standards - I used to work for StorageTek where an argument just like
this went on about 2 years ago - the IEC side won. Generally the hardware
people were all for IEC, and the software side less so.


rgds,
Per Jessen, Zurich

regards,
Per Jessen, Zurich
http://www.enidan.com - home of the J1 serial console.

Windows 2001: "I'm sorry Dave ...  I'm afraid I can't do that."


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