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:
“Devout believers are safeguarded in a high degree against the risk of certain neurotic illnesses; their acceptance of the universal neurosis spares them the task of constructing a personal one.”
—Sigmund Freud (1856–1939)
“Cynicism makes things worse than they are in that it makes permanent the current condition, leaving us with no hope of transcending it. Idealism refuses to confront reality as it is but overlays it with sentimentality. What cynicism and idealism share in common is an acceptance of reality as it is but with a bad conscience.”
—Richard Stivers, U.S. sociologist, educator. The Culture of Cynicism: American Morality in Decline, ch. 1, Blackwell (1994)
“And is the price for your acceptance for me to conform? To be as you would want me to be?... You must accept me as I am. Do not question.... If my behavior seems different perhaps it is because it serves a higher purpose than to find acceptance in this dull and useless world.”
—Pat Fielder, and Paul Landres. Dracula (Francis Lederer)