Re: [i18n] String Changes in iso-codes
I have to say I for one support this exception for Taiwan.
ISO names should be accepted by all but mostly they should be accepted
by the referenced party (in this case Taiwan).
It is in Debian's best interest not to provoke politically, and in
this case it does.
My 2c.
Konstantinos
On Wednesday 07 April 2004 22:14, Anthony Fok wrote:
> Hello Christian,
>
> Speaking as a Hong Kong Chinese myself:
>
> * I want to see Mainland China and Taiwan unified too eventually.
>
> * However, "Taiwan, P.O.C." is too sensitive. Speaking as a
> Hong Kong Chinese, using "Taiwan, P.O.C." will be a bad
> mistake.
>
> While I think ISO 3166 for maintaining country/region information
> would help us keep the list updated, I do strongly feel that we
> MUST make an exception for the name of Taiwan.
>
> * "Taiwan" is a neutral name that is acceptable by both Mainland
> Taiwan Chinese.
>
> * "Taiwan, P.O.C." is a very controversial name in Taiwan.
> Using that name (esp. in English the "universal" language)
> is very unwise, and is asking for trouble.
>
> Please handle this situation very carefully. As you may have heard
> from the recent Taiwan election, the political views of Taiwan
> people are very divided, roughly half and half. Please don't add
> oil to the fire. Using controversial terms like "Taiwan, P.O.C." in
> a Free Software project like Debian helps NOBODY except starting
> flame wars here and there. It is already happening.
>
> As a matter of fact, some Taiwan Debian fans are already turned off
> by this, and is comparing this "event" to the "disappearance of
> Taiwan flag in Red Hat Linux 8.0" about a year ago. In that case,
> many Taiwan users boycotted Red Hat and chose some other
> distributions, for good. Please don't let that happen to Debian.
>
> Again, I don't mind using ISO 3166 in d-i as long as you allow
> overrides.
>
> Best regards,
>
>
> Anthony Fok
> Debian Chinese Project
--
Konstantinos Margaritis
Debian Developer
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