GiB vs. GB

[Aaron J. Seigo]

On Friday 02 November 2007, Charles Samuels wrote:
> Times change, terminologies change. Just as one day, a "billion" meant
> a "million million" in many English-speaking countries.
>
> I often hear of people who don't like the SI binary units because they
> "sound stupid" which is not only very subjective, but also something that's
> easily cured by "getting used to it" - and you will.
>
> Changes, even those that are to the better, won't happen overnight, but
> they'll happen eventually. Let's be better now. You don't like it now,
> that's ok, people don't like change, but you'll get used to it.

> Anyway, I thought KDE was here to change the world.

there are lots of things we're not trying to change, shouldn't try to change 
and/or would be foolish to try.

the day GiB enters the common vernacular as GB and "gig" has we can follow 
along. we are not able to be effective agents of change in this particular 
area and in the meantime we are delivering a user interface that is more 
technical and confusing to the lay person than it needs to be.

it's dissapointing that we value meaningless yet technical correctness over 
usability. we make it so easy for people to point at our software and say 
things like, "see, it's meant for hard core techies." and make it more 
difficult than necessary for the computer using public to enjoy our stuff.

> > Plus if we start using MiB/GiB etc. that means we must use it everywhere
> > because then GB/MB means the power of 10 version, which is so confusing
> > as to be ludicrous.  Imagine the tech support requests.  "How much free
> > memory do you have?" "It says 11.2 MB" "Is that decimal MB or binary MB?"
> >  "HUH?"
>
> When that time comes, people will say "11.2 MiB". Maybe even hard-disk
> manufacturers will be pressured to start using logical units (GiB... well,
> TiB by the time it actually happens) as a result. Or maybe it'll take so
> long that we'll be talking about qubits by then.

or maybe it won't ever happen because people in general really don't care. 
they know the two letters GB means "something about how big it is". 
presenting a consistently arrived at number before those two letters is the 
trick. changing the letters doesn't do much except lead to confusion amongst 
those who don't know what GiB means.

> Aaron J. Seigo wrote, on Friday 2007 November 02:
> > 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).
>
> How is telling people the size of a file a disservice? People who see GiB
> will think of it as "something like a GB" - 

so people who have asked me, "what is GiB?" ... were just really, really 
stupid?

> is pretty close to an SI GB (1000000000). Most people don't even know the
> difference between a "GB" and an "MB". All they know is that their hard
> disk stores so many MP3s, and that their disk is 60% full.

indeed; the question isn't if they know the relation between GB and MB but if 
they recognize that GiB is a measure of storage and if so how it relates to 
what they already know. we're failing them here.

-- 
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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