🚀 go-pugleaf

[This is from rms, but please send replies to the reply-to addresses
shown in the header: disk-unit-poll@gnu.ai.mit.edu, hlj@posix.com]

The current draft of the POSIX user portability extensions spec says
that df and du should give sizes in units of 512 bytes.  I have found
this behavior confusing and inconvenient; I suspect others do too.

Some other people involved in the standards process have said they
prefer units of 1024; in response, the committee added the -k option,
which says to use 1024 instead of 512.

I think this is not a real solution.  The use of 512 as the unit will
make life difficult for beginning users who don't know about -k.  And
it seems silly to make 512 the default if users won't like it.

The committee chose 512, not because they think users prefer it,
but for totally unrelated reasons having to do with how BSD and 
System V behave.  I think this decision should be made based on the
preferences of actual users.  If the users tell the committee what
they want, the committee may yet listen.

Aside from that, we can make the GNU system do what users prefer even
if that disagrees with POSIX.  We don't have to follow the standard.

But what do most users prefer?  To find out, here is a poll.


Which of these two alternatives would you prefer, and how much?

* df and du output is in units of 1024.

* df and du is in units of 512 unless you use -k.


hlj@posix.com is included in the reply-to field of this message
because he is the person to whom people not in the POSIX UPE committee
should send their comments on the spec.  It's important to send your
preference to him, because the committee must then officially
recognize that they know what you prefer.  And they have to pay at
least a little attention to your preference.  I invited him to set up
an alternative mailbox for these messages, but he said he'd rather get
them in his own mailbox.

I hope he gets a lot of mail. :-)