This discussion is devolving into apples vs oranges, so here is a shot at helping us focus again.
Note the subject line talks about the "Desktop", not the command-line stuff where POSIX got its start. The original post on this topic was talking about Gnome and glib: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/glib2.0/+bug/369525 I doubt that POSIX has anything to say about glib, but perhaps I'm missing something. There I think using standard SI units properly is probably the best approach for desktop users in Gnome. I think we've already seen that many interesting command line apps (which POSIX does address) have a --si option which I'm guessing allows folks to stay POSIX-compliant or get something that meets the SI standard, so that's cool. We've also discussed the fix (already fixed in intrepid) for ifconfig. https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/net-tools/+bug/240073 and I don't know but I somehow doubt that there is a POSIX issue there, though I guess that some folks might parse the output and get confused. But it seems like the right direction to go. I think it will help in this discussion to be very specific about which tool or application we're talking about. I think POSIX is important, as is clarity and consistency about use of unit prefixes, as is consistency with upstream and other distros. And as we've seen, those can conflict. So I expect it to be an ongoing conversation as we look at each package. If we can use standard SI and/or IEC units without violating POSIX, I think we should. There was also a discussion all this last September on the devel list: Ubuntu Policy: prefixes for multiples of units https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-devel/2008-September/026567.html and I recall a discussion at UDS-Jaunty https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UDSJaunty about it but the link on that page to the schedule is gone http://summit.ubuntu.com/uds-jaunty/ and I don't see any mention of it in the reports. Scott - can you shed some more light on that? In general the best way to have an effect is to comment in the bug reports, or in the blueprint, both of which help to preserve important context. See also the Gnome bug discussions: storage units standard http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=309850 g_format_size_for_display() should use correct IEC units http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=554172 Neal McBurnett http://neal.mcburnett.org/ -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss
