Euric wrote:
"If the suit is silly wouldn't that be for a court to
decide?"
In terms of what happens next, yes. However, anyone is entitled to an opinion that may or may not agree with that of the court. Often an opinion not agreeing with that of a court is vindicated when the decision of a lower court is overturned by that of a higher court. My opinion still stands (as an opinion).
"But if the court decides not to throw it out then it must have some merit."
In that particular court's opinion,
yes. Others are free to continue to think otherwise. Their opinions just
don't have the weight of law.
"I'd still be curious to see if such a
suit is still going to proceed and if it does what outcome will
result."
So would I.
"Hopefully one that will force the industry to either choose binary or decimal prefixes or both for their products, but not a mixture of both."
That may or may not be the outcome. As long as a manufacturer provides an unambiguous specification (e.g., capacity in bytes, using no prefix at all), the advertising may or may not be an issue. After all, how many consumers who have bought 90 mm diskettes, thinking they contained 1.44 mebibytes, would not have bought them if they knew they only contained 1440 kibibytes.
I'm sure the defense counsel(s) will raise many relevant issues, including that of the capacity of the diskette when it contains multiple files, as opposed to its capacity when it contains one conventional file, or its capacity when it contains one CAB file (which always exceeds the manufacturer's stated capacity). Because of different formatting conventions, a manufacturer can really only provide an unformatted capacity (which is always greater than the effective, or practical, capacity -- except in the case of CAB files).
Incidentally, when I format a 90 mm diskette, Windows tells me I have 1 457 664 bytes available capacity, which is greater than the manufacturer's claim of 1.44 MB (assuming the manufacturers of diskettes follow historical industry practice and use true base-10 megabytes). It also tells me I have 1.38 MB available, which means, in that case, they actually mean mebibytes. Again, that's an understatement, rather than an overstatement, in that 1 457 664 bytes is, in fact, 1.39 mebibytes.
Bill Potts, CMS
Roseville, CA
http://metric1.org [SI Navigator]
