451042 - Any hope Mozilla developers would start using SI instead of homebrewed invalid units?

Status: VERIFIED DUPLICATE of bug 108147

(Firefox :: General, defect)

Description

[Saul]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux x86_64; en-US; rv:1.9.0.1) Gecko/2008080608 Gentoo Firefox/3.0.1
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux x86_64; en-US; rv:1.9.0.1) Gecko/2008080608 Gentoo Firefox/3.0.1

I know this bug has been filed before - and for some reason gone unnoticed.
Now Firefox is gaining significant share in web browsing. Isn't this ultimate time to start spreading literacy instead of illiteracy?
For instance, look at this unit currently used in FF: KB/sec
K (uppercase K stands for Kelvin degree) - an obvious (but unsuccessful) attempt to say kilo.
B is byte - happens to be correct (I'm noting this because too often people write b when they mean B).
/ - slash, used in SI as "per". Use of this indicates FF team tries to use SI?
sec - used for second in imperial measurement system, SI equivalent would be s. 
USA switched to the metric system after WW2.
As of today, 60 years later, there is only one person in the US who actually knows SI? This person set up SI page at US government site:
http://physics.nist.gov/cuu/Units/prefixes.html

Please, please, please, help to educate your users!

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Start any Mozilla product
2.
3.
Actual Results:  
Miserable display of glaring illiteracy.


I'm going to tag it as major because major it is. (I realize it may seem as nothing to people who dropped out from middle school.)

Comment 1

[Dave Townsend [:mossop]]

If you know a bug has been filed before then you should not file it again.

Comment 2

[Matthias Versen [:Matti]]

You are wasting our time if you report bugs again.
You have to search for existing bugs before you report a new one.

verified dupe

Comment 3

[Saul]

Did this ever cross your mind people are reporting this bug again because it is not corrected?
I'm terribly sorry wasting a whole minute of your precious time.
The idea of preferring chaos over system really beats me.
What is this "KB/sec" thing anyway? It does not comply with any standards, it is just a mixture of illiteracy, SI and imperial measurement system. If Mozilla wants to use "custom" units or they should be taken as an abbreviations, why they are not in the Glossary? What's the advantage of using undefined self-made units over system ones?
The whole idea of using standards is to have it always and everywhere the same. There's a country where the word "standard" does not have a meaning. Redmond releases "standard" browsers (because they have their own standard), SpeedTV measures speed in "Km/h" (their TV standard), US Railroad denotes weight in "KGS" (RR industry standard?), bizrate.com writes "Mm" when they mean millimeters (business standard, bigger the better?), just to name a few.
It's sad to see somebody with a .de address joining the ranks of anarchists. Last time I visited Germany distances were measured in "km", will it be "KMS" soon? I was thinking Germany is the castle of accuracy and preciseness ...

Comment 4

[Matthias Versen [:Matti]]

>Did this ever cross your mind people are reporting this bug again because it is
>not corrected?
It's already reported and a reporter must search before filing a new bug. That means that they should find bug 108147.
Your comments in this bug report are going to /dev/null because the discussion is in bug 108147.
standards are only useful if the people are using and understand this units.
That's the reason why people in Europe/Germany are still using Horse Powers instead of kw and that many people in the US are still using miles, pounds, inches.
If SI Units are more used I'm sure that Firefox will switch.
I've heard the first time of SI with bug 108147 and the only application on my 3 windows systems that is using SI is Seamonkey/Gecko and my Triage-Firefox (in about:cache).

You are free to create your own language pack with SI units.

Comment 5

[Nicolas Barbulesco]

See bug 680801.

(In reply to Saul from comment #0)

> K (uppercase K stands for Kelvin degree) - an obvious (but unsuccessful)
> attempt to say kilo.

Speaking of literacy, K is the symbol of kelvin, not Kelvin degree. There is not such thing as a Kelvin degree.

Comment 6

[Saul]

I added degree to Kelvin just to give a clue to people who are not familiar with standardized units. 
Decision to use KB kind of defeats the idea of standardization. 
Anyhow, I've given up. I get my drugs from my farmacy and the dose is in MG (mg), I buy a load strap and its capacity is denoted in KGS (kg), I watch tennis and the serve speed is shown in KMH (km/h), etc, etc. Illiteracy cannot be beaten. Just sorry to see Firefox is among those carrying it. For those who sincerely think there is KB/sec I've provided a link:

http://physics.nist.gov/cuu/Units/binary.html

This may help, too: http://physics.nist.gov/cuu/Units/prefixes.html