From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: from lists.gentoo.org (pigeon.gentoo.org [208.92.234.80]) by finch.gentoo.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id C9FBA1387FD for ; Mon, 31 Mar 2014 10:56:27 +0000 (UTC) Received: from pigeon.gentoo.org (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by pigeon.gentoo.org (Postfix) with SMTP id 55520E0A68; Mon, 31 Mar 2014 10:56:23 +0000 (UTC) Received: from qmta03.westchester.pa.mail.comcast.net (qmta03.westchester.pa.mail.comcast.net [76.96.62.32]) by pigeon.gentoo.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id B82E3E0A61 for ; Mon, 31 Mar 2014 10:56:22 +0000 (UTC) Received: from omta01.westchester.pa.mail.comcast.net ([76.96.62.11]) by qmta03.westchester.pa.mail.comcast.net with comcast id kAbM1n0030EZKEL53AwNy6; Mon, 31 Mar 2014 10:56:22 +0000 Received: from [192.168.1.13] ([50.190.84.14]) by omta01.westchester.pa.mail.comcast.net with comcast id kAwN1n0020JZ7Re3MAwNSe; Mon, 31 Mar 2014 10:56:22 +0000 Message-ID: <533949D3.9090709@gentoo.org> Date: Mon, 31 Mar 2014 06:56:19 -0400 From: Joshua Kinard User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64; rv:24.0) Gecko/20100101 Thunderbird/24.4.0 Precedence: bulk List-Post: List-Help: List-Unsubscribe: List-Subscribe: List-Id: Gentoo Project discussion list X-BeenThere: gentoo-project@lists.gentoo.org Reply-To: gentoo-project@lists.gentoo.org MIME-Version: 1.0 To: gentoo-project@lists.gentoo.org Subject: Re: [gentoo-project] Call for agenda items - Council meeting 2014-04-08 References: <53342A5F.70903@gentoo.org> <20140330103342.76108bfb@pomiot.lan> <5338229D.6000801@gentoo.org> <20140330174725.44191bc2@pomiot.lan> <5338A348.3010900@gentoo.org> <69FC69C3-7C44-4A9D-975C-0A3B498DAD97@gentoo.org> <20140331080746.25261b9a@pomiot.lan> In-Reply-To: <20140331080746.25261b9a@pomiot.lan> X-Enigmail-Version: 1.6 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=comcast.net; s=q20140121; t=1396263382; bh=IoTIKQkz0UE44y9CDXINjtQL3NbUTStlAXP8JEwxK/E=; h=Received:Received:Message-ID:Date:From:MIME-Version:To:Subject: Content-Type; b=v5WsS9iSWoDb5OS0rnHScC5uJ+vpfVBLBFwDgVCWn85eaYfbWThKKbrLzLmDV8Bam NppRUvG3gBWXnvLL6H4tdHxjOxj3xhPp8awfRBh+Esjy9ojH0UUm0zvY086ipaVODL 7YEZh07al0PKSM0ArMave1TLs3OLMBRtL38+zkK1rCQxi+d1CypKujKDQXgr7STtJ4 r3ge1RjRth0Uad0dKynN7hXogs+psKd7VHnPvPvZlP2+GyXowwpnHerMHHFnAod8eu 9HySr5/iVilMiclk0qbbAc1ScEce9IglAdLwtBIkjDuKqyh1t0Q74xVwhQ20ZXdYAX o+8cCBBUm1cVg== X-Archives-Salt: 43e33921-8dd7-43e4-bac5-268808803425 X-Archives-Hash: cd1afca809df953077dd763ee47a6108 On 03/31/2014 02:07, Michał Górny wrote: > Dnia 2014-03-30, o godz. 23:13:50 > Richard Yao napisał(a): > >> Lets just stick with the JEDEC standard's way of doing things that came from IBM. > > JEDEC itself admits it have failed with the 'standard way': > > | NOTE 2 The definitions of kilo, giga, and mega based on powers of two > | are included only to reflect common usage. IEEE/ASTM SI 10‑1997 states > | "This practice frequently leads to confusion and is deprecated." Further > | confusion results from the popular use of a "megabyte" consisting > | of 1 024 000 bytes to define the capacity of the familiar "1.44‑MB" > | diskette. > > http://www.jedec.org/standards-documents/dictionary/terms/mega-m-prefix-units-semiconductor-storage-capacity The problem is, those of us who grew up in those dark ages, who played with 5.25" and 3.5" disks....we're a lost cause. No hope to save us. It'll always be 1,024 bytes to a kilobyte. Anything else is blasphemy. Save yourselves! Besides, for an outdated standard, it still gets used a lot. Last I checked, one can really only buy RAM in sizes of powers of two. And the computer will report that size, in powers of two. Ditto for L1/L2/L3 caches (look at the top of any kernel dmesg), etc. In some respect, if all one cares about is free space on a disk drive or how fast they can stream a movie, then the KiB/MiB thing works. But if you play with bits and bytes from time-to-time (and worry about byte alignment) or sometimes fiddle w/ partition tables in a hex editor...you're going to think in terms of powers of two. So both have their uses. Hence my suggestion of making it a user-configurable setting. -- Joshua Kinard Gentoo/MIPS kumba@gentoo.org 4096R/D25D95E3 2011-03-28 "The past tempts us, the present confuses us, the future frightens us. And our lives slip away, moment by moment, lost in that vast, terrible in-between." --Emperor Turhan, Centauri Republic