Re: Cultural differences and how to handle them
On Wed, Jul 03, 2019 at 09:54:38PM +0200, Marc Haber wrote:
> On Wed, Jul 03, 2019 at 08:51:38PM +0200, Fabian Grünbichler wrote:
> > another case in point from last month(!) and a little more to the South,
> > where Vienna hosted this year's Europride:
> >
> > https://www.wienerlinien.at/eportal3/ep/contentView.do/pageTypeId/66526/programId/74577/contentTypeId/1001/channelId/-47186/contentId/4203520
> >
> > the rainbow flags on trams have been a stable of the weeks leading up to
> > pride for years:
> >
> > https://www.vienna.at/2019/05/20190530-Regenbogenf%C3%A4hnchen-1-1-4-3-330933700-933x700.jpg
> >
> > one of the main sponsors this year was REWE group, which everyone from
> > Austria or Germany is probably familiar with, but as were others like
> > Coca-Cola, one of the biggest banks in Austria, Siemens and some
> > public/privatized stuff like unions, state railways, public transport of
> > Vienna, .. full list here: https://europride2019.at/sponsors-partners/
>
> Did any of those companies change their website logo for a month?
The Viennese public transport company has been doing it for years on
their tram ways (not sure of the exact duration, but a few weeks at
least around the Vienna Pride and Lifeball), and had lots of ads and
stuff like slogans on their electronic schedule displays this year.
Coca-Cola sold (still stocked in some shops) bottles heavily featuring
pride flags and slogans, which is arguably a lot more visible than
changing a logo on a website.
REWE put up rainbow/pride flags on each of their shop entrances a few
years ago, those are still there today and year-round
(https://www.rewe-group.com/de/newsroom/stories/rewe-setzt-auf-regenbogen/).
Siemens heavily promoted their sponsoring of and participation in
Europride on Facebook at least, their last two posts are pride-related.
Those are just the first instances that came to my mind without
googling, or that were linked directly from the index of their
respective web sites.
It does feel kind of ridiculous to have to post message like this (and
feel like I have to promote or defend corporations that I don't care
about at all) - obviously companies sponsoring an event like Europride
also promote that fact publicly, it's the point of sponsoring after all.
Some probably do it for PR reasons, some do it because their employees
take the initiative, for some it might be an area of personal interest
for people making such decisions. That it is no problem[1] in a country
with a political climate like Austria to host such an event and get it
sponsored by lots of big, boring companies, but that it causes such
waves inside Debian to change the logo on the website to that of the
appropriate Debian team speaks volumes IMHO. It probably also shows why
such teams and initiatives are still sorely needed today and for the
forseeable future.
I likely won't post another mail to this thread, it's past the point of
being tiresome already.
1: Of course there was the usual sorry and small lot of fundamental
christians and neo-nazis to protest the pride parade itself. Yes, this
is a very accurate description of who organized that and showed up
there.
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