On Sun, Apr 04, 2004 at 07:28:49PM -0600, Paul E Condon wrote: > Given what I understand of the politics and history of Taiwan/China, I > think it is unlikely that the two use the same language *in every detail*. > Particularly, I doubt that their usage of technical language jargon is the > same. I'm just a naïve gaijin[1], but I'm not sure you're right about that. Written zh_CN and zh_TW look very similar to Western eyes. I've seen a comparison of the two in some Sun documentation, and they really just looked like the exact same glyphs in two different fonts. Like look at English lettering in bold versus normal weight. (Not *exactly* like that, but close). Sun Microsystems has a lot of expertise in this area. We have nothing to gain by taking sides political conflicts like this. The Debian OS can be customized by regional interests if needed. Beijing and Taipei can each make their own politically-correct forks of Debian if they need to, deleting offensive nomenclature about the other country. Similarly, Kurds in Iraq or Turkey may create "Kurdistan GNU/Linux", to the irritation of the Turkish government and the U.S. occupation force in Iraq. Chechen rebels or Basque separatists could fork Debian, too. IMO, we should neither try to take a strong position on these politically explosive issues, nor should we try to walk on eggshells. I think we should take a similar approach as we do to package management. If we have developer(s) willing to vouch for legitimacy of a locale, and willing to maintain support for it, we should include it. If some governmental interest needs to bowdlerize our distribution to satisify their political sensibilities, they can go ahead. I think it says a lot about Debian success that we've come as far as we have -- we're a long way from worrying about fortunes-off and the Purity Test. Now we're worried about pissing off governments. :) If any Chinese would like to offer me some education on this subject in private mail, please feel free. I have read the Wikipedia article on the Republic of China[3] already, though. [1] Yes, I know that's not a Chinese word. [2] At the same time, from my modest knowledge of Chinese history since 1949, it's hard to find "neutral" terminology. Neutral terms about this issue seem to get perverted over time into euphemisms for either unificiation or independence, and then become political footballs. [3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republic_of_China -- G. Branden Robinson | I reverse the phrase of Voltaire, Debian GNU/Linux | and say that if God really existed, branden@debian.org | it would be necessary to abolish http://people.debian.org/~branden/ | him. -- Mikhail Bakunin
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