Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id ; Sat, 22 Dec 2001 03:06:05 -0500 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id ; Sat, 22 Dec 2001 03:05:42 -0500 Received: from femail39.sdc1.sfba.home.com ([24.254.60.33]:11169 "EHLO femail39.sdc1.sfba.home.com") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id ; Sat, 22 Dec 2001 03:05:41 -0500 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII From: Rob Landley To: esr@thyrsus.com, Reid Hekman Subject: Re: Configure.help editorial policy Date: Fri, 21 Dec 2001 19:04:06 -0500 X-Mailer: KMail [version 1.3.1] Cc: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org In-Reply-To: <20011220143247.A19377@thyrsus.com> <1008880024.3926.2.camel@localhost.localdomain> <20011220152340.A20824@thyrsus.com> In-Reply-To: <20011220152340.A20824@thyrsus.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7BIT Message-Id: <20011222080538.EPWH4664.femail39.sdc1.sfba.home.com@there> Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org On Thursday 20 December 2001 03:23 pm, Eric S. Raymond wrote: > Reid Hekman : > > Perhaps if we could be so bold as to back Donald Knuth's KKB,MMB,GGB > > proposal (of which I learned here: > > http://www.linuxdoc.org/HOWTO/Large-Disk-HOWTO-3.html ). > > Hm. Attractive, but it doesn't have an ISO standard behind it. Two words: "Posix threading." Somebody had to say it. How many successful real-world networks have been designed around the OSI 7 layer burrito networking model? ISO standards do not define reality much on the internet. RFCs define reality quite often on the internet. Most RFCs come well after the fact, and an amazing number of RFCs are ignored or quickly replaced. Several of them ADMIT to being jokes. Are you saying an ISO pronouncement has MORE weight than an RFC? ISO got into the computing world largely by rubber-stamping existing standards from ANSI, CCITT, IEEE, and elsewhere. Not by making good decisions. The ISO will happily standardize sugar cube sizes and pencil lead density. They don't HAVE to know anything about the subject in question. The best standards are the ones that either document practices that already exist or define a draft interoperability procol hammered out by the parties who are going to implement it (preferably with sample code which ends up being worth more than the standards document). Do you expect Microsoft to start using the term "mebibyte" any time soon? Or hard drive manufacturers (who largely use decimal megabytes anyway for marketing reasons)? Or ram manufacturers who obviously want end users to learn a new term to buy their products? It would be a stupid marketing move. (Sheesh, AMD's launching a major campaign to get away from "megahertz". And failing at it, I might add.) How long did it take for end users to stop referring to the "baud rate" of their modem, which hasn't been technically true since the 300 baud days. (A "2400 baud" modem was actually 600 baud, 4 symbol if I remember correctly...) In the short term, this change to the help files (which people look at when they DON'T know stuff) is GUARANTEED to confuse WAY more people than it even hopes to help over at least the next two years. Almost everybody who sees it is going to have to ask "what's a mebibyte" and go look it up. Does this really make the help file more helpful? If the term goes into widespread use, THEN switch. If you want to make a policy about it, we currently use binary measures when we measure memory or storage in the linux kernel unless otherwise specified. Always have done. Rob - To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/