I am sad to see that while certain people propagate the use of free and open software, they keep on using something horribly outdated – the “imperial” unit of measurement. The International System of Units is used throughout the entire world, yet some Open Source software is not using it by default.

The one piece of software I ran across today, which was using that outdated system was Open Office. Now, I can not claim that it was indeed Open Office, because it might just as well be that the Ubuntu Crew changed some settings when packaging OpenOffice.org2 – than again it isn’t important who did this.

What I mean is, how can one advocate open source software, yet rely on a non universal standard for units of measurement. How bluntly irrational is it to criticize Microsoft for not conforming to a certain standard yet not doing so oneself? While nobody awaits from Microsoft to suddenly step forward and do something right, you could await such a thing from people who propagate the use and the right to use free and useful software.

I fear that not many people see this matter as I see it though. And crap; I am not in favor of dropping the support of the “imperial” system right away, or at all for that matter. I am just bored to see that the default setting keeps on being non-SI.