Re: Standard Compliance in Country Names
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Christian Perrier <bubulle@debian.org> wrote:
> Quoting Denis Barbier (barbier@linuxfr.org):
>> the names which are best suited for their needs. (But changing
>> this language name is not that easy and will take several days)
>> So Christian, take some rest without net access and when you are back
>> we will see if you change your mind about this issue ;)
> Well, on that point, at least you are right. This is precisely what I
> will do.
Enjoy your time -- we are looking forward to have you back.
> However, I take this occasion to highlight something which seems
> misunderstood here?: I, myself, Christian Perrier, am absolutely NOT
> in position of changing anything on my own decision.
I understand. It may appear that we are all venting our anger on you,
but that is not really the case here. I think most of the arguments are
addressed to you because you are the original submitter of bug #238973,
and because you have been a vocal supporter of standardizing on ISO 3166
country names. It could possibly be that the majority of developers
actually agree with you, and they just never bothered to speak up
because you have made their point better than they could have done
themselves. In order to negotiate a preferable solution, we feel that
we must address people's concerns -- a process that inevitably requires
that we pay careful attention to your specific concerns.
Yes, there are protocols to be followed when proposing changes to Debian
projects or packages. But so much nicer would it be if we could make
sure that we are on the same page and have a consensus on how things
should be handled before taking specific actions, instead of just trying
to force our way through the established protocols. However
(un)successful we are, we do not wish to come across as a bunch of
unreasonable people in your eyes.
> again, this is only my opinion. I would rather prefer to see our
> taiwanese friends spend part of their energy dealing with this issue
> with ISO-3166 maintenance agency, but it looks like refusing all
> proposed compromises is easier. Fine.
Personally I think your suggestions are pretty good and go a long way in
working around a number of our concerns. If we cannot have our way,
then implementing your suggestions will make our users a lot less upset
than they would otherwise be. But as a (sort of) representative of our
users in Taiwan, I must strive for the solution that our users find most
acceptable (and people do have strong feelings about this). I know that
dealing with a insistent and stubborn SOB can be immensely irritating,
but in this case you will have to endure.
For your information, people had tried to take the issue to ISO. I do
not have access to the original documents, and the best I can do is to
offer you my own translation of a statement by the R.O.C. Ministry of
Foreign Affairs. Here it goes:
[BEGIN QUOTE]
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs had in 1998 and 2000 twice negotiated
with the ISO 3166 Maintenance Agency in Berlin (under Deutsches Institut
fur Normung) on the correction of our listed name, and was later
informed that ISO reached the decision of not honoring the request for
the following reasons:
1. Changing the listed name violates the ISO 3166 naming policy, under
which the standard bases all its data on "Standard Country or Area
Code for Statistical Use" and "United Nations Terminology Bulletin
No.347 Rev.1 - Country Names" as published by the United Nations.
ISO has no discretion in granting such requests.
[EDITORIAL: a similar passage can also be found in the ISO 3166 FAQ
hosted on the ISO website.]
2. ISO is a standard body that aims at promoting international
commerce, services, and data interchange, and the organization has
no intention of commenting on the legal status of countries or
regions listed in ISO 3166.
[END QUOTE]
Basically they are using the same defense as Debian is now trying to
apply: point 1 says that they are simply quoting some other
authoritative sources and we should take our issues to that organization
instead (where the request will be warmly received by a country with
veto power in the security council that probably submitted the
inaccurate data in the first place), and point 2 says that they are not
interested in what we think we should be called, and since they are only
a poor standard body that tries to be of service to the whole mankind,
they cannot be bothered with such trivial things as politics. If you
would forgive me for being a little bit ungrateful for their services...
Either way, I would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who
had followed this entire discussion and offered opinions or suggestions;
special thanks goes to those who had voiced support to our position.
Following Perrier's lead, I will take this weekend off and think this
over. Everyone is encouraged to do the same (the take-some-time-off
part, I mean) -- with the exception of those who still have RC bugs on
their hands!
/me runs off to fix my own bugs
- --
Chuan-kai Lin
http://www.cse.ogi.edu/~linchuan/
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