linux-kernel - Re: [PATCH v3 3/4] x86/efi: print size in binary units in efi_print

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Date:	Sat, 23 Jan 2016 12:43:31 -0800
From:	"H. Peter Anvin" <hpa@...or.com>
To:	One Thousand Gnomes <gnomes@...rguk.ukuu.org.uk>,
	James Bottomley <James.Bottomley@...senPartnership.com>
CC:	Andy Shevchenko <andy.shevchenko@...il.com>,
	Andy Shevchenko <andriy.shevchenko@...ux.intel.com>,
	Matt Fleming <matt@...eblueprint.co.uk>,
	Thomas Gleixner <tglx@...utronix.de>,
	Ingo Molnar <mingo@...hat.com>, linux-efi@...r.kernel.org,
	Rasmus Villemoes <linux@...musvillemoes.dk>,
	Andrew Morton <akpm@...ux-foundation.org>,
	"linux-kernel @ vger . kernel . org" <linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>,
	Robert Elliott <elliott@....com>
Subject: Re: [PATCH v3 3/4] x86/efi: print size in binary units in efi_print_memmap

On January 23, 2016 12:29:26 PM PST, One Thousand Gnomes <gnomes@...rguk.ukuu.org.uk> wrote:
>All a bit revisionist. Everyone else on the planet was upset about it
>because it broke things like calculating bit density because the
>prefixes
>for the bit capacity are not in metric form. BIPM (keeper of the SI
>units) never approved powers of two as an interpretation. IEC came into
>line in 1999, ISO followed.
>
>Disk sizes have been decimal since at least the 1970s. The original IBM
>10MB hard disc for example was 10MB not 10MiB.
>
>Powers of two are only validly referred to as KiB, MiB, GiB as of all
>current standard body positions. Powers of 10 based units are kB, MB,
>GB)
>
>(The best one is CD and DVD: DVD uses the proper definition, CD uses
>MiB,
>although given the multiple sector sizes and encodings on CD it's all
>manure anyway)
>
>Alan

Then there are oddball definitions like 1 MB = 1,024,000, which IBM used for disk for a long time.  At least IEC tried to come up with a unambiguous way to denote these prefixes.  It was less of an issue for kilo- since the binary prefix was always capitalized.
-- 
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