GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 612698
Clarify in the translator's metadata which MB unit is used
Last modified: 2012-02-20 16:16:06 UTC
I was wondering if I could have some clarification on the MB being used. In the Norwegian translation we have to be precise on what unit is used. We operate with MB as 10^6 bytes and MiB as 2^20 bytes. I was wondering if you could perhaps add that information to the translation metadata to File Roller so there is no room for confusion. I'm not really sure if this goes to docs or general so I guessed docs. Please fix if not correct. Thank you in advance.
In English, MB is megabite and MiB is mebibyte, same as in Norwegian. Did you see MB used where you were expecting MiB? For example, in the user help (docs) or in the user interface (general)?
Kvikende, can you please respond to comment#1 ?
Ever since this commit http://git.gnome.org/browse/glib/commit/?id=afd1e3697065c1bd23fe9a1cacf43d8744d0bc9b GLib (and therefore GNOME) units policy is that "MB" is SI units (= 1000000 bytes) and "MiB" is IEC units (= 1048576 bytes), with the SI units being the preference for most user-interesting sizes (with an exception for memory consumption). You should assume this policy is being followed by all programs and you should never change the string "MB" to "MiB" in a translation -- even if the original program is incorrect. That would be a bug in the original program, and when that bug would get fixed, then "MB" would mean 1000000 bytes and your translation would continue to translate it to "MiB", which would be quite wrong. In short: assume the policy is being followed, and if it's not, then file a bug about it. Never 'fix bugs' by editorialising in translations.
Closing as per last comment.