Bug#534408: debian-policy: Installed-Size is defined as "kilobytes" but dpkg-gencontrol fills it in with kibibytes

[Russ Allbery <rra@debian.org>]

Martin Dorey <mdorey@bluearc.com> writes:

> debian-policy appears to define Installed-Size's units as thousands of
> bytes:
>
>> 5.6.20 Installed-Size
>> This field appears in the control files of binary packages, and in
>> the Packages files. It gives the total amount of disk space required
>> to install the named package.  The disk space is represented in
>> kilobytes as a simple decimal number.
>
> I suspect this is informal language describing an intention to use
> kibibytes - units of 1024 bytes - as implemented by dpkg-gencontrol's
> use of du -k:

Agreed.  At the time Policy was originally written, kilobyte nearly
universally meant kibibyte in the industry.  I'll change this to:

    The disk space is given as the integer value of the installed size
    in bytes divided by 1024 and rounded (in other words, the size in
    kibibytes).

for the next release.  (I believe this is an informative change that
doesn't require seconds.)

-- 
Russ Allbery (rra@debian.org)               <http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/>