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Re: why must Debian call Taiwan a "Province of China"?



Anthony Johnson <pc_1500@yahoo.com> writes:
> > Why why must Debian call Taiwan a "Province of China"?  Why can't it
> > just stick with a neutral "Taiwan".  Why single out a geographical
> > name and append a political statement to it?  Sticks out and looks
> > kind of silly.

> Debian cannot win this argument and should not participate in it. We
> have to choose names from some standards body somewhere, and no matter
> what we do somebody will disagree.

Anyone with half a brain can see what moronic thing the `Taiwan,
Province of China' is.  It's the _only_ `editorial comment' in the
entire list (all other comma-separated entries are simple prefixes which
when used result in each country's full official name; the Taiwan entry
doesn't really fit).

It's clear that the PRC threw its weight around, threw a tantrum,
whatever, to get this kind of crap embedded in a standard, as
unnecessary and awkward as it is.

There's a solution which angers no one except those who have already
have abused the process:  just keep `Taiwan'.

Debian can even make a standard if they want: editorial comments will be
deleted.  Thus in the future, if Israel and Iran get tagged as `Israel,
illegitimate zionist running dogs', and `Iran, dictatorship of evil'
(and given the horse-trading that these standards reflect, I wouldn't
be at all surprised), Debian's course will be clear.

> > Why thrust Debian into politics, where there was no big problem
>
> It is people like you who thrust Debian into politics, even not enough
> in debian-boot.  Yes, you love living in China Taiwan. Will you stand
> on the other side when you live in China mainland?

Debian shouldn't _make_ editorial comments like this, but they shouldn't
dumbly stand by and mirror those made by others with fewer scruples.

-Miles
-- 
Somebody has to do something, and it's just incredibly pathetic that it
has to be us.  -- Jerry Garcia



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