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Re: Must debian-installer use iso-codes package when choosing country?



Dé Domh, 2004-04-04 ag 02:53 +0200, scríobh Frans Pop:

> I really think that using the 'really' short names (that is just plain Taiwan 
> instead of Taiwan, P.. of C..) would not be a bad compromise despite what the 
> official so called short UN names say.

Agreed the "official short names" are ugly ;
(http://www.iso.org/iso/en/prods-services/iso3166ma/02iso-3166-code-lists/list-en1.html)
 eg. "LAO PEOPLE'S DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC", "LIBYAN ARAB JAMAHIRIYA" for
those countries normally called "Laos" and "Libya". However, sometimes
the short version is the problem too: eg. do we allow 
"MACEDONIA, THE FORMER YUGOSLAV REPUBLIC OF", to be shortened to
"Macedonia"? I'm sure the Greeks won't agree to that ...

> After all, isn't Linux for a large part about being "free" as in "able to 
> choose for yourselves" which is what Taiwan has been trying to to for the 
> past decades.

Ironically, one of the main reasons I created the iso-codes package is
to allow this; if someone wanted to create "Kurdish Linux" and add
Kurdistan as a territory, then they would only have 1 list to override
or correct on Linux, rather than n separate lists of countries and
translations ...
(But I don't want to fork Debian over this issue :-( )


> I think the really short names are often a lot more politically neutral than 
> the semi-official names in iso-3166. 

The countries in question have used the list to make their own political
points; but the problem is that Debian deciding to change some names and
not others is no longer being neutral. 


> FJP

Regards,
Alastair


-- 
Alastair McKinstry <mckinstry@computer.org>
GPG Key fingerprint = CD45 260A 4546 C3C0 F595  F0F6 4132 BF90 2A38 5C57
He that would make his own liberty secure must guard even his enemy from
oppression; for if he violates this duty he establishes a precedent that
will reach to himself.

- --Thomas Paine



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