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



Miles Bader <miles@lsi.nec.co.jp> schrieb/wrote:
> Anthony Johnson <pc_1500@yahoo.com> writes:
>> certainly it is NOT a bug. Anyone with half a brain can see that.

> So how do you justify the brokenness of the Taiwan entry -- which unlike
> every other entry, doesn't properly yield the name of the country?

Given that the People's Republic of China is a UN member state whereas  
the Republic of China/Taiwan is not, is is only /consequent/ to label  
Taiwan that way.

That does not mean Debian -- or everyone else -- has to follow.

BTW, there are a lot of other names from ISO 3166 that IMO should be  
changed for everyday use:

Short name contains unnecessary parts from the full official name  
(probably for political hyper-correctness):

IRAN, ISLAMIC REPUBLIC OF;IR                => IRAN
LAO PEOPLE'S DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC;LA         => LAOS
MICRONESIA, FEDERATED STATES OF;FM          => MICRONESIA
MOLDOVA, REPUBLIC OF;MD                     => MOLDOVA
TANZANIA, UNITED REPUBLIC OF;TZ             => TANZANIA

A different short name is more common (again, the UN name was probably  
chosen for political correctness):

KOREA, DEMOCRATIC PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC OF;KP   => KOREA, NORTH
KOREA, REPUBLIC OF;KR                       => KOREA, SOUTH

Other "strange" entries:

HOLY SEE (VATICAN CITY STATE);VA            => VATICAN

The country is "Vatican City State". The "Holy See" is the Pope. The
"Vatican" is not a UN member, whereas the "Holy See" is a (permanent
IIRC) observer. So again, it's logical for the UN to use the name of the  
entity that has closer relations to the UN.
For non-UN bodies, the use of the country name "Vatican (City State)" is  
more logical.

PALESTINIAN TERRITORY, OCCUPIED;PS          => PALESTINIAN TERRITORY

This is actually the most problematic entry. Leaving out the
"occupied" is not a big problem, though. It might be controversial  
whether to use just "PALESTINE", however.   ^

Claus
-- 
http://www.faerber.muc.de




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