GiB vs. GB

[Aaron J. Seigo]

On Friday 02 November 2007, Jerome Yuzyk wrote:
> Well, in the kilobyte and megabyte days I would have agreed, but now that
> we're into giga and now tera, doesn't the difference increase (1000^n vs

the point is that regardless of whether we are measuring using 1000^n or 2^N 
(1024^N if you prefer), using the term GiB in the UI is simply not useful. 
those of us who know the difference understand, and those who don't have 
little idea what a "GiB" is. so by putting GiB there instead of GB, 
regardless of how we actually measure it, we only do a disservice to the less 
technical (the overwhelming majority of people).

interestingly, wikipedia says[1]:

"However, since there are no other uses for the term 'Gigabyte' apart from 
refering to memory, file sizes, storage capacity, amounts of network traffic, 
the standards bodies' recommendations are frequently ignored amongst computer 
professionals, and 'Gigabyte' is used by them as if it were 1024³ bytes."

we can measure using the binary definition (GiB) but i'd really prefer to see 
use the *commonly* understood unit abbreviation of GB(KB/MB/TB/etc)

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gigabyte

-- 
Aaron J. Seigo
humru othro a kohnu se
GPG Fingerprint: 8B8B 2209 0C6F 7C47 B1EA  EE75 D6B7 2EB1 A7F1 DB43

KDE core developer sponsored by Trolltech
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