Acceptance
In 1998, the International Bureau of Weights and Measures (BIPM), one of the organizations that maintain SI, published a brochure stating, among other things, that SI prefixes strictly refer to powers of ten and should not be used to indicate binary multiples, using as an example that 1 kilobit is 1000 bits and not 1024 bits.
The binary prefixes have been adopted by the European Committee for Electrotechnical Standardization (CENELEC) as the harmonization document HD 60027-2:2003-03 and therefore they are legally binding in the EU. This means that legally there is no confusion because it is clearly defined that binary prefixes have to be used for powers of two and SI prefixes only for powers of ten. This document has been adopted as a European standard.
Despite the presence of the standard and organization adoption, the new binary prefixes are only gaining acceptance slowly. The SI prefixes for binary multiples have been in use for many years, new operating systems and applications still use them.
Supporters of IEEE 1541 emphasize that the new standard solves the confusion of units in the market place. Some researchers and software (most notably free and open source) have embraced the standard and use the decimal SI prefixes and new binary prefixes according to the standards.
Read more about this topic: IEEE 1541-2002
Famous quotes containing the word acceptance:
“I greet thy love,
Not with vain thanks, but with acceptance bounteous.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“Cats of all kinds weave in and out of the text; Burroughs has clearly taken to them in a big way in his old age and seems torn between a fear they will betray him into sentimentality and a resigned acceptance that a man can’t be ironic all the time.”
—Angela Carter (1940–1992)
“There is a striking dichotomy between the behavior of many women in their lives at work and in their lives as mothers. Many of the same women who are battling stereotypes on the job, who are up against unspoken assumptions about the roles of men and women, seem to accept—and in their acceptance seem to reinforce—these roles at home with both their sons and their daughters.”
—Ellen Lewis (20th century)