Ubuntu implements units policy, will switch to base-10 units in future release

“Ubuntu’s future 10.10 operating system is going to make a
small, but contentious change to how file sizes are represented.
Like most other operating systems using binary prefixes, Ubuntu
currently represents 1 kB (kilobyte) as 1024 bytes (base-2). But
starting with 10.10, a switch to SI prefixes (base-10) will denote
1 kB as 1000 bytes, 1 MB as 1000 kB, 1 GB as 1000 MB, and so
on.

“It was first reported that 10.04 Lucid Lynx would make the
switch to base-10, but it was eventually delayed to lucid+1 (10.10)
as all applications didn’t comply with the new units policy and
were still using base-2.”

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