[arch-general] Country Name (ISO-3116) Issues
Hello, First of all, I am sorry to bring political issues to here. I have been using ArchLinux for years, deployed on many servers, though I'm not joining the community until now. The recent changes to the ArchLinux webpages (ex. Downloads, Mirror Status) is really offending Taiwanese people. I would like to bring up this issue, and preferably to resolve this issue. I have posted this message on the forum: https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=144315 . The moderator suggested me to post on arch-general, so here it is. :) There is also a bug tracking issue submitted by other Taiwanese user that I'm requesting for reopen here: https://bugs.archlinux.org/task/30444 The following text is the same as the post on forum, except a few modification to make text smoother. The recent changes on the download page named Taiwan as Taiwan, Province of China, which is not reflecting the truth that Taiwan is a independent country which having its own government. I think this might be caused by following the ISO-3166 country name list standard. However, I don't think ISO-3166 is a good list when it comes to the country name. Many open source communities have encountered this problem before. Most of them understand that ISO-3166 is not really a neutral list that we all hope for, and thus made switch to a separate maintained country list. For example, FreeBSD[1], Rails[2], Debian[3]. Many big commercial entities also opt not to use "Taiwan, PRC" in their country list, like: Apple[4], IBM[5], also try Google, Facebook, Twitter, et cetra. A possible solution might be using the country name list from ICU[6]. I believed the ArchLinux is trying to expand its user-base around the world, so a neutral country name list would be the best for the benefit of all of us, ArchLinux developers and users. As a Taiwanese ArchLinux user, I'm really happy to see that user base of ArchLinux is growing in Taiwan. Some educational institutions provide mirrors site in Taiwan, Wiki localized in Traditional Chinese in the recent years. I sincerely hope this issue can be resolved as soon as possible. Let's keep the issue simple and not flaming it, thanks. References: [1] FreeBSD: http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/query-pr.cgi?pr=138672 [2] Rails: http://www.koziarski.net/archives/2008/9/24/countries-and-controversies/ [3] Debian: http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2004/04/msg00798.html [4] Apple: http://www.apple.com/choose-your-country/ [5] IBM: http://www.ibm.com/planetwide/select/selector.html [6] ICU: http://source.icu-project.org/repos/icu/icu/trunk/source/data/region/en.txt Best Regards, Chien-An "Zero" Cho
Hello, I am a Simplified Chinese user with 2 years of arch experience (of course I am not joining the community), but I agree with your opinion. I don't want ArchLinux to repeat the way that Red Hat used to go (Red Hat used to call Taiwan 'Taiwan, province of China', and many people refused to use it --according to Wikipedia). I think that just simply calling it 'Taiwan' is okay. We don't care what the government is saying (especially, P.R. China government may be angry, but who cares?). What we want to do is to provide convenience to the user, is it? So I agree with you and I really hope the community to change its name back to Taiwan (as I know, the name is used to be 'Taiwan' in the past years) The fact is we don't want to talk a lot about political issues, but changing its name to Taiwan is a good idea. Sam ----------------------------------------
From: itszero@gmail.com Date: Sun, 1 Jul 2012 23:08:07 +0800 To: arch-general@archlinux.org Subject: [arch-general] Country Name (ISO-3116) Issues
Hello,
First of all, I am sorry to bring political issues to here. I have been using ArchLinux for years, deployed on many servers, though I'm not joining the community until now. The recent changes to the ArchLinux webpages (ex. Downloads, Mirror Status) is really offending Taiwanese people. I would like to bring up this issue, and preferably to resolve this issue.
I have posted this message on the forum: https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=144315 . The moderator suggested me to post on arch-general, so here it is. :) There is also a bug tracking issue submitted by other Taiwanese user that I'm requesting for reopen here: https://bugs.archlinux.org/task/30444
The following text is the same as the post on forum, except a few modification to make text smoother.
The recent changes on the download page named Taiwan as Taiwan, Province of China, which is not reflecting the truth that Taiwan is a independent country which having its own government. I think this might be caused by following the ISO-3166 country name list standard. However, I don't think ISO-3166 is a good list when it comes to the country name.
Many open source communities have encountered this problem before. Most of them understand that ISO-3166 is not really a neutral list that we all hope for, and thus made switch to a separate maintained country list. For example, FreeBSD[1], Rails[2], Debian[3]. Many big commercial entities also opt not to use "Taiwan, PRC" in their country list, like: Apple[4], IBM[5], also try Google, Facebook, Twitter, et cetra. A possible solution might be using the country name list from ICU[6].
I believed the ArchLinux is trying to expand its user-base around the world, so a neutral country name list would be the best for the benefit of all of us, ArchLinux developers and users. As a Taiwanese ArchLinux user, I'm really happy to see that user base of ArchLinux is growing in Taiwan. Some educational institutions provide mirrors site in Taiwan, Wiki localized in Traditional Chinese in the recent years. I sincerely hope this issue can be resolved as soon as possible. Let's keep the issue simple and not flaming it, thanks.
References:
[1] FreeBSD: http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/query-pr.cgi?pr=138672 [2] Rails: http://www.koziarski.net/archives/2008/9/24/countries-and-controversies/ [3] Debian: http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2004/04/msg00798.html [4] Apple: http://www.apple.com/choose-your-country/ [5] IBM: http://www.ibm.com/planetwide/select/selector.html [6] ICU: http://source.icu-project.org/repos/icu/icu/trunk/source/data/region/en.txt
Best Regards, Chien-An "Zero" Cho
I agree with you, guys. Although I come from China. On Jul 1, 2012 11:24 PM, "BlissSam" <m13253@hotmail.com> wrote:
Hello,
I am a Simplified Chinese user with 2 years of arch experience (of course I am not joining the community), but I agree with your opinion. I don't want ArchLinux to repeat the way that Red Hat used to go (Red Hat used to call Taiwan 'Taiwan, province of China', and many people refused to use it --according to Wikipedia). I think that just simply calling it 'Taiwan' is okay. We don't care what the government is saying (especially, P.R. China government may be angry, but who cares?). What we want to do is to provide convenience to the user, is it?
So I agree with you and I really hope the community to change its name back to Taiwan (as I know, the name is used to be 'Taiwan' in the past years)
The fact is we don't want to talk a lot about political issues, but changing its name to Taiwan is a good idea.
Sam
----------------------------------------
From: itszero@gmail.com Date: Sun, 1 Jul 2012 23:08:07 +0800 To: arch-general@archlinux.org Subject: [arch-general] Country Name (ISO-3116) Issues
Hello,
First of all, I am sorry to bring political issues to here. I have been using ArchLinux for years, deployed on many servers, though I'm not joining the community until now. The recent changes to the ArchLinux webpages (ex. Downloads, Mirror Status) is really offending Taiwanese people. I would like to bring up this issue, and preferably to resolve this issue.
I have posted this message on the forum: https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=144315 . The moderator suggested me to post on arch-general, so here it is. :) There is also a bug tracking issue submitted by other Taiwanese user that I'm requesting for reopen here: https://bugs.archlinux.org/task/30444
The following text is the same as the post on forum, except a few modification to make text smoother.
The recent changes on the download page named Taiwan as Taiwan, Province of China, which is not reflecting the truth that Taiwan is a independent country which having its own government. I think this might be caused by following the ISO-3166 country name list standard. However, I don't think ISO-3166 is a good list when it comes to the country name.
Many open source communities have encountered this problem before. Most of them understand that ISO-3166 is not really a neutral list that we all hope for, and thus made switch to a separate maintained country list. For example, FreeBSD[1], Rails[2], Debian[3]. Many big commercial entities also opt not to use "Taiwan, PRC" in their country list, like: Apple[4], IBM[5], also try Google, Facebook, Twitter, et cetra. A possible solution might be using the country name list from ICU[6].
I believed the ArchLinux is trying to expand its user-base around the world, so a neutral country name list would be the best for the benefit of all of us, ArchLinux developers and users. As a Taiwanese ArchLinux user, I'm really happy to see that user base of ArchLinux is growing in Taiwan. Some educational institutions provide mirrors site in Taiwan, Wiki localized in Traditional Chinese in the recent years. I sincerely hope this issue can be resolved as soon as possible. Let's keep the issue simple and not flaming it, thanks.
References:
[1] FreeBSD: http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/query-pr.cgi?pr=138672 [2] Rails: http://www.koziarski.net/archives/2008/9/24/countries-and-controversies/ [3] Debian: http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2004/04/msg00798.html [4] Apple: http://www.apple.com/choose-your-country/ [5] IBM: http://www.ibm.com/planetwide/select/selector.html [6] ICU: http://source.icu-project.org/repos/icu/icu/trunk/source/data/region/en.txt
Best Regards, Chien-An "Zero" Cho
On Sun 01 Jul 2012 23:08 +0800, Zero, Chien-An Cho wrote:
Hello,
First of all, I am sorry to bring political issues to here. I have been using ArchLinux for years, deployed on many servers, though I'm not joining the community until now. The recent changes to the ArchLinux webpages (ex. Downloads, Mirror Status) is really offending Taiwanese people. I would like to bring up this issue, and preferably to resolve this issue.
I have posted this message on the forum: https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=144315 . The moderator suggested me to post on arch-general, so here it is. :) There is also a bug tracking issue submitted by other Taiwanese user that I'm requesting for reopen here: https://bugs.archlinux.org/task/30444
The following text is the same as the post on forum, except a few modification to make text smoother.
The recent changes on the download page named Taiwan as Taiwan, Province of China, which is not reflecting the truth that Taiwan is a independent country which having its own government. I think this might be caused by following the ISO-3166 country name list standard. However, I don't think ISO-3166 is a good list when it comes to the country name.
Many open source communities have encountered this problem before. Most of them understand that ISO-3166 is not really a neutral list that we all hope for, and thus made switch to a separate maintained country list. For example, FreeBSD[1], Rails[2], Debian[3]. Many big commercial entities also opt not to use "Taiwan, PRC" in their country list, like: Apple[4], IBM[5], also try Google, Facebook, Twitter, et cetra. A possible solution might be using the country name list from ICU[6].
I believed the ArchLinux is trying to expand its user-base around the world, so a neutral country name list would be the best for the benefit of all of us, ArchLinux developers and users. As a Taiwanese ArchLinux user, I'm really happy to see that user base of ArchLinux is growing in Taiwan. Some educational institutions provide mirrors site in Taiwan, Wiki localized in Traditional Chinese in the recent years. I sincerely hope this issue can be resolved as soon as possible. Let's keep the issue simple and not flaming it, thanks.
References:
[1] FreeBSD: http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/query-pr.cgi?pr=138672 [2] Rails: http://www.koziarski.net/archives/2008/9/24/countries-and-controversies/ [3] Debian: http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2004/04/msg00798.html [4] Apple: http://www.apple.com/choose-your-country/ [5] IBM: http://www.ibm.com/planetwide/select/selector.html [6] ICU: http://source.icu-project.org/repos/icu/icu/trunk/source/data/region/en.txt
I agree. I'm very disappointed by the response of Dave Reisner on that bug report. The reality is that the PRC does not have jurisdiction or claim over Taiwan. When standards are false they should not be followed. Dave: Can you educate yourself a little about the Republic of China and Taiwan vs the People's Republic of China, before making a final decision? Thank you.
On Sun, Jul 1, 2012 at 7:28 PM, Loui Chang <louipc.ist@gmail.com> wrote:
On Sun 01 Jul 2012 23:08 +0800, Zero, Chien-An Cho wrote:
Hello,
First of all, I am sorry to bring political issues to here. I have been using ArchLinux for years, deployed on many servers, though I'm not joining the community until now. The recent changes to the ArchLinux webpages (ex. Downloads, Mirror Status) is really offending Taiwanese people. I would like to bring up this issue, and preferably to resolve this issue.
I have posted this message on the forum: https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=144315 . The moderator suggested me to post on arch-general, so here it is. :) There is also a bug tracking issue submitted by other Taiwanese user that I'm requesting for reopen here: https://bugs.archlinux.org/task/30444
The following text is the same as the post on forum, except a few modification to make text smoother.
The recent changes on the download page named Taiwan as Taiwan, Province of China, which is not reflecting the truth that Taiwan is a independent country which having its own government. I think this might be caused by following the ISO-3166 country name list standard. However, I don't think ISO-3166 is a good list when it comes to the country name.
Many open source communities have encountered this problem before. Most of them understand that ISO-3166 is not really a neutral list that we all hope for, and thus made switch to a separate maintained country list. For example, FreeBSD[1], Rails[2], Debian[3]. Many big commercial entities also opt not to use "Taiwan, PRC" in their country list, like: Apple[4], IBM[5], also try Google, Facebook, Twitter, et cetra. A possible solution might be using the country name list from ICU[6].
I believed the ArchLinux is trying to expand its user-base around the world, so a neutral country name list would be the best for the benefit of all of us, ArchLinux developers and users. As a Taiwanese ArchLinux user, I'm really happy to see that user base of ArchLinux is growing in Taiwan. Some educational institutions provide mirrors site in Taiwan, Wiki localized in Traditional Chinese in the recent years. I sincerely hope this issue can be resolved as soon as possible. Let's keep the issue simple and not flaming it, thanks.
References:
[1] FreeBSD: http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/query-pr.cgi?pr=138672 [2] Rails: http://www.koziarski.net/archives/2008/9/24/countries-and-controversies/ [3] Debian: http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2004/04/msg00798.html [4] Apple: http://www.apple.com/choose-your-country/ [5] IBM: http://www.ibm.com/planetwide/select/selector.html [6] ICU: http://source.icu-project.org/repos/icu/icu/trunk/source/data/region/en.txt
I agree. I'm very disappointed by the response of Dave Reisner on that bug report. The reality is that the PRC does not have jurisdiction or claim over Taiwan. When standards are false they should not be followed.
Dave: Can you educate yourself a little about the Republic of China and Taiwan vs the People's Republic of China, before making a final decision? Thank you.
This has been discussed a number of times. While no one has so far questioned the validity of the bug, the consensus seems to be that this should be taken upstream [0]. I hope it is clear that no offense is intended, and that we do not want to make any political judgments (and hence defer to the UN). [0]: <http://www.iso.org/iso/updates_on_iso_3166.html>.
On Sun 01 Jul 2012 21:23 +0200, Tom Gundersen wrote:
On Sun, Jul 1, 2012 at 7:28 PM, Loui Chang <louipc.ist@gmail.com> wrote:
On Sun 01 Jul 2012 23:08 +0800, Zero, Chien-An Cho wrote:
Hello,
First of all, I am sorry to bring political issues to here. I have been using ArchLinux for years, deployed on many servers, though I'm not joining the community until now. The recent changes to the ArchLinux webpages (ex. Downloads, Mirror Status) is really offending Taiwanese people. I would like to bring up this issue, and preferably to resolve this issue.
I have posted this message on the forum: https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=144315 . The moderator suggested me to post on arch-general, so here it is. :) There is also a bug tracking issue submitted by other Taiwanese user that I'm requesting for reopen here: https://bugs.archlinux.org/task/30444
The following text is the same as the post on forum, except a few modification to make text smoother.
The recent changes on the download page named Taiwan as Taiwan, Province of China, which is not reflecting the truth that Taiwan is a independent country which having its own government. I think this might be caused by following the ISO-3166 country name list standard. However, I don't think ISO-3166 is a good list when it comes to the country name.
Many open source communities have encountered this problem before. Most of them understand that ISO-3166 is not really a neutral list that we all hope for, and thus made switch to a separate maintained country list. For example, FreeBSD[1], Rails[2], Debian[3]. Many big commercial entities also opt not to use "Taiwan, PRC" in their country list, like: Apple[4], IBM[5], also try Google, Facebook, Twitter, et cetra. A possible solution might be using the country name list from ICU[6].
I believed the ArchLinux is trying to expand its user-base around the world, so a neutral country name list would be the best for the benefit of all of us, ArchLinux developers and users. As a Taiwanese ArchLinux user, I'm really happy to see that user base of ArchLinux is growing in Taiwan. Some educational institutions provide mirrors site in Taiwan, Wiki localized in Traditional Chinese in the recent years. I sincerely hope this issue can be resolved as soon as possible. Let's keep the issue simple and not flaming it, thanks.
References:
[1] FreeBSD: http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/query-pr.cgi?pr=138672 [2] Rails: http://www.koziarski.net/archives/2008/9/24/countries-and-controversies/ [3] Debian: http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2004/04/msg00798.html [4] Apple: http://www.apple.com/choose-your-country/ [5] IBM: http://www.ibm.com/planetwide/select/selector.html [6] ICU: http://source.icu-project.org/repos/icu/icu/trunk/source/data/region/en.txt
I agree. I'm very disappointed by the response of Dave Reisner on that bug report. The reality is that the PRC does not have jurisdiction or claim over Taiwan. When standards are false they should not be followed.
Dave: Can you educate yourself a little about the Republic of China and Taiwan vs the People's Republic of China, before making a final decision? Thank you.
This has been discussed a number of times. While no one has so far questioned the validity of the bug, the consensus seems to be that this should be taken upstream [0].
I hope it is clear that no offense is intended, and that we do not want to make any political judgments (and hence defer to the UN).
Gimme a break. These kind of political issues aren't solved by "taking it upstream". Since when are politicians or people under the influence of politics known for their outstanding adherence to logic and reason? It's not such a simple technical thing that you can "take it upstream." If you have any idea how the ISO works you will wake up to the fact of how ridiculous that suggestion is. If Taiwan (ROC) can't get it to happen, what do you expect of us? But as has been suggested maybe Arch should choose a different upstream for this kind of information. Please open your mind a little, a false standard is no standard at all.
On 02/07/12 05:49, Loui Chang wrote:
On Sun 01 Jul 2012 21:23 +0200, Tom Gundersen wrote:
On Sun, Jul 1, 2012 at 7:28 PM, Loui Chang <louipc.ist@gmail.com> wrote:
On Sun 01 Jul 2012 23:08 +0800, Zero, Chien-An Cho wrote:
Hello,
First of all, I am sorry to bring political issues to here. I have been using ArchLinux for years, deployed on many servers, though I'm not joining the community until now. The recent changes to the ArchLinux webpages (ex. Downloads, Mirror Status) is really offending Taiwanese people. I would like to bring up this issue, and preferably to resolve this issue.
I have posted this message on the forum: https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=144315 . The moderator suggested me to post on arch-general, so here it is. :) There is also a bug tracking issue submitted by other Taiwanese user that I'm requesting for reopen here: https://bugs.archlinux.org/task/30444
The following text is the same as the post on forum, except a few modification to make text smoother.
The recent changes on the download page named Taiwan as Taiwan, Province of China, which is not reflecting the truth that Taiwan is a independent country which having its own government. I think this might be caused by following the ISO-3166 country name list standard. However, I don't think ISO-3166 is a good list when it comes to the country name.
Many open source communities have encountered this problem before. Most of them understand that ISO-3166 is not really a neutral list that we all hope for, and thus made switch to a separate maintained country list. For example, FreeBSD[1], Rails[2], Debian[3]. Many big commercial entities also opt not to use "Taiwan, PRC" in their country list, like: Apple[4], IBM[5], also try Google, Facebook, Twitter, et cetra. A possible solution might be using the country name list from ICU[6].
I believed the ArchLinux is trying to expand its user-base around the world, so a neutral country name list would be the best for the benefit of all of us, ArchLinux developers and users. As a Taiwanese ArchLinux user, I'm really happy to see that user base of ArchLinux is growing in Taiwan. Some educational institutions provide mirrors site in Taiwan, Wiki localized in Traditional Chinese in the recent years. I sincerely hope this issue can be resolved as soon as possible. Let's keep the issue simple and not flaming it, thanks.
References:
[1] FreeBSD: http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/query-pr.cgi?pr=138672 [2] Rails: http://www.koziarski.net/archives/2008/9/24/countries-and-controversies/ [3] Debian: http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2004/04/msg00798.html [4] Apple: http://www.apple.com/choose-your-country/ [5] IBM: http://www.ibm.com/planetwide/select/selector.html [6] ICU: http://source.icu-project.org/repos/icu/icu/trunk/source/data/region/en.txt
I agree. I'm very disappointed by the response of Dave Reisner on that bug report. The reality is that the PRC does not have jurisdiction or claim over Taiwan. When standards are false they should not be followed.
Dave: Can you educate yourself a little about the Republic of China and Taiwan vs the People's Republic of China, before making a final decision? Thank you.
This has been discussed a number of times. While no one has so far questioned the validity of the bug, the consensus seems to be that this should be taken upstream [0].
I hope it is clear that no offense is intended, and that we do not want to make any political judgments (and hence defer to the UN).
Gimme a break. These kind of political issues aren't solved by "taking it upstream". Since when are politicians or people under the influence of politics known for their outstanding adherence to logic and reason? It's not such a simple technical thing that you can "take it upstream." If you have any idea how the ISO works you will wake up to the fact of how ridiculous that suggestion is. If Taiwan (ROC) can't get it to happen, what do you expect of us?
But as has been suggested maybe Arch should choose a different upstream for this kind of information. Please open your mind a little, a false standard is no standard at all.
Well... this discussion will go nowhere... And I should point out that most developers are now not subscribed from this list because of its low signal-to-noise ratio so this thread will likely not get to the right people. The solution is to find us a different upstream that has any sort of standards backing. This is just like Arch's policy with software. We do not patch because a feature is not the way we like it. Allan
On Sun, Jul 1, 2012 at 9:49 PM, Loui Chang <louipc.ist@gmail.com> wrote:
Gimme a break. These kind of political issues aren't solved by "taking it upstream". Since when are politicians or people under the influence of politics known for their outstanding adherence to logic and reason? It's not such a simple technical thing that you can "take it upstream." If you have any idea how the ISO works you will wake up to the fact of how ridiculous that suggestion is. If Taiwan (ROC) can't get it to happen, what do you expect of us?
I didn't mean to imply that this was a simple problem to solve (and I agree with your aim for what that's worth). Simply that we do not want to make political decisions at all. This might be a straightforward one, but it sets a precedent and next time around we might be asked to decide on something less clear-cut.
But as has been suggested maybe Arch should choose a different upstream for this kind of information. Please open your mind a little, a false standard is no standard at all.
I had a look at ICU, but could not find any satisfactory documentation. They claim to take their data from the same ISO standard that we already use, but I could find no explanation for the discrepancy. To be a bit constructive: IMHO any proposal for a change must be made in general terms, and not by special-casing based on this issue. So, if we can find a new upstream that is comparable to ISO3166, but at the same time is somehow more "neutral", that would be something to consider I guess. I have to agree with Allan though, this issue is likely going nowhere. -t
On 02/07/12 09:47, Tom Gundersen wrote:
On Sun, Jul 1, 2012 at 9:49 PM, Loui Chang <louipc.ist@gmail.com> wrote:
Gimme a break. These kind of political issues aren't solved by "taking it upstream". Since when are politicians or people under the influence of politics known for their outstanding adherence to logic and reason? It's not such a simple technical thing that you can "take it upstream." If you have any idea how the ISO works you will wake up to the fact of how ridiculous that suggestion is. If Taiwan (ROC) can't get it to happen, what do you expect of us?
I didn't mean to imply that this was a simple problem to solve (and I agree with your aim for what that's worth). Simply that we do not want to make political decisions at all. This might be a straightforward one, but it sets a precedent and next time around we might be asked to decide on something less clear-cut.
But as has been suggested maybe Arch should choose a different upstream for this kind of information. Please open your mind a little, a false standard is no standard at all.
I had a look at ICU, but could not find any satisfactory documentation. They claim to take their data from the same ISO standard that we already use, but I could find no explanation for the discrepancy.
To be a bit constructive: IMHO any proposal for a change must be made in general terms, and not by special-casing based on this issue. So, if we can find a new upstream that is comparable to ISO3166, but at the same time is somehow more "neutral", that would be something to consider I guess.
I have to agree with Allan though, this issue is likely going nowhere.
I have found a solution. All mirrors in countries with disputed names are just removed from the official mirrorlist. Allan
On Sun, Jul 1, 2012 at 8:47 PM, Allan McRae <allan@archlinux.org> wrote:
I have found a solution. All mirrors in countries with disputed names are just removed from the official mirrorlist.
I believe servers south of the Mason-Dixon line should be listed under the country name "Confederate States of America". Under this new solution, I propose removing USA servers south of the Mason-Dixon line from the mirrorlist. --Andrew Hills
On 02/07/12 10:51, Andrew Hills wrote:
On Sun, Jul 1, 2012 at 8:47 PM, Allan McRae <allan@archlinux.org> wrote:
I have found a solution. All mirrors in countries with disputed names are just removed from the official mirrorlist.
I believe servers south of the Mason-Dixon line should be listed under the country name "Confederate States of America". Under this new solution, I propose removing USA servers south of the Mason-Dixon line from the mirrorlist.
Done.
Do never remove any mirrors from the mirrorlist! Acturally, if a Taiwan user tries to connect a China mirror, the connection is really really slow. The same as Hong Kong or Macau, although they belong to China. If you remove any mirror from the mirrorlist, only trouble will be brought to the user. Sam ----------------------------------------
Date: Mon, 2 Jul 2012 10:52:07 +1000 From: allan@archlinux.org To: arch-general@archlinux.org Subject: Re: [arch-general] Country Name (ISO-3116) Issues
On 02/07/12 10:51, Andrew Hills wrote:
On Sun, Jul 1, 2012 at 8:47 PM, Allan McRae <allan@archlinux.org> wrote:
I have found a solution. All mirrors in countries with disputed names are just removed from the official mirrorlist.
I believe servers south of the Mason-Dixon line should be listed under the country name "Confederate States of America". Under this new solution, I propose removing USA servers south of the Mason-Dixon line from the mirrorlist.
Done.
On Sun, Jul 1, 2012 at 7:51 PM, Andrew Hills <hills.as@gmail.com> wrote:
On Sun, Jul 1, 2012 at 8:47 PM, Allan McRae <allan@archlinux.org> wrote:
I have found a solution. All mirrors in countries with disputed names are just removed from the official mirrorlist.
I believe servers south of the Mason-Dixon line should be listed under the country name "Confederate States of America". Under this new solution, I propose removing USA servers south of the Mason-Dixon line from the mirrorlist.
--Andrew Hills
A little more bikeshed. I propose all servers not located in the Republic of Texas be removed from the mirrorlist. Oh yeah the rest of y'all call us a state now. Myra -- Life's fun when your sick and psychotic!
As Gaetan pointed out, it is not the job of Linux distribution maintainers to decide country names. But it seems to me this whole issue is not really about deciding what to name a country as that decision has already been made by many. The fact is simply that the data being used does not accurately reflect the world as most see it today. If this is not the case and this is in fact a political debate, then I am wrong, but it appears to me this is a technical debate about whether it is the responsibility of Arch, or someone else to implement the change. I would like to suggest that this is a fairly trivial change, so whether Arch "is supposed to" change the name is irrelevant. The fact remains that, regardless of whether they are obligated to change it or not, it is an easy thing to do that would be very positive for a lot of people. A good solution it seems would be to implement a temporary workaround and apply pressure upstream for a permanent fix using the weight of Arch's influence. Devon Sun, Jul 1, 2012 at 11:41 PM, Myra Nelson <myra.nelson@hughes.net> wrote:
On Sun, Jul 1, 2012 at 7:51 PM, Andrew Hills <hills.as@gmail.com> wrote:
On Sun, Jul 1, 2012 at 8:47 PM, Allan McRae <allan@archlinux.org> wrote:
I have found a solution. All mirrors in countries with disputed names are just removed from the official mirrorlist.
I believe servers south of the Mason-Dixon line should be listed under the country name "Confederate States of America". Under this new solution, I propose removing USA servers south of the Mason-Dixon line from the mirrorlist.
--Andrew Hills
A little more bikeshed.
I propose all servers not located in the Republic of Texas be removed from the mirrorlist. Oh yeah the rest of y'all call us a state now.
Myra
-- Life's fun when your sick and psychotic!
Am 02.07.2012 01:47, schrieb Tom Gundersen:
On Sun, Jul 1, 2012 at 9:49 PM, Loui Chang <louipc.ist@gmail.com> wrote:
But as has been suggested maybe Arch should choose a different upstream for this kind of information. Please open your mind a little, a false standard is no standard at all.
I had a look at ICU, but could not find any satisfactory documentation. They claim to take their data from the same ISO standard that we already use, but I could find no explanation for the discrepancy.
To be a bit constructive: IMHO any proposal for a change must be made in general terms, and not by special-casing based on this issue. So, if we can find a new upstream that is comparable to ISO3166, but at the same time is somehow more "neutral", that would be something to consider I guess.
In addition to all the arguments why we cannot simply change country names and we are in general the wrong people to ask for there are also technical reasons to not make up our own names here. All kinds of software and libraries support this naming standard which makes it possible to map country names. For example I use geoip and our mirrorlist to redirect users to the best mirror within their country. There are probably other use cases which rely on the country names being standardized. So yes, if you think your country is named wrongly in the standard you should change this standard or create a new one which then needs to be accepted by most software projects. We probably ship a lot of packages using these names and patching all these ourselves is not the way to go. And even if we would want to, on what should we base a decision? Obviously there are different opinions how certain countries should be named. However, one could switch to the two or three letter naming standard which hopefully would be less controversial. It would also be less human readable, but at least one would keep it technically valid. Greetings, Pierre -- Pierre Schmitz, https://pierre-schmitz.com
I didn't mean to imply that this was a simple problem to solve (and I agree with your aim for what that's worth). Simply that we do not want to make political decisions at all.
I didn't want to get into this discussion, but I've seen this claim made several times. Siding with UN (or any other political entity) *IS* making a political decision. I could easily jump to Goodwin's now, with an analogy of when accepting the status-quo or major political force would not be acceptable for anyone here... anyway.. (would you allow women to vote on Arch issues, when/if they couldn't vote for parliament, as they couldn't in a lot of places ?) You now claim that Republic of Macedonia's name is "Macedonia, The Former Yugoslav Republic of" but there's no such *name*. It's just a *temporary* reference used by *some* institutions in the world and then again, not by others. The UN uses that reference too, even when it's own charters (should) guaranty the right of a sovereign country to have it's own name (ie the right of self determination). So why does Arch not abide by those UN charters? Obviously UN is politically inconsistent with itself here, and Arch now decided to comply with those political decisions. If I've been trying to build a community, I'd ask the people that created & manage the server what they think (or feel) it should be named after. That's how meritocratic communities usually work round here, right? Meritocracy is still not non-political, but at least is most fair to everyone in a community, even the weaker. -- дамјан
For people still care about this issue, I made a reply in a related issue of django-countries here: https://bitbucket.org/smileychris/django-countries/issue/16/capitalization-a... It is actually a fork of the original long-and-unmaintained project at google code, and is versioned 1.2 in pypi. -- Yao Wei
On Sun, 1 Jul 2012 15:49:46 -0400 Loui Chang <louipc.ist@gmail.com> wrote:
On Sun 01 Jul 2012 21:23 +0200, Tom Gundersen wrote:
On Sun, Jul 1, 2012 at 7:28 PM, Loui Chang <louipc.ist@gmail.com> wrote:
On Sun 01 Jul 2012 23:08 +0800, Zero, Chien-An Cho wrote:
Hello,
First of all, I am sorry to bring political issues to here. I have been using ArchLinux for years, deployed on many servers, though I'm not joining the community until now. The recent changes to the ArchLinux webpages (ex. Downloads, Mirror Status) is really offending Taiwanese people. I would like to bring up this issue, and preferably to resolve this issue.
I have posted this message on the forum: https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=144315 . The moderator suggested me to post on arch-general, so here it is. :) There is also a bug tracking issue submitted by other Taiwanese user that I'm requesting for reopen here: https://bugs.archlinux.org/task/30444
The following text is the same as the post on forum, except a few modification to make text smoother.
The recent changes on the download page named Taiwan as Taiwan, Province of China, which is not reflecting the truth that Taiwan is a independent country which having its own government. I think this might be caused by following the ISO-3166 country name list standard. However, I don't think ISO-3166 is a good list when it comes to the country name.
Many open source communities have encountered this problem before. Most of them understand that ISO-3166 is not really a neutral list that we all hope for, and thus made switch to a separate maintained country list. For example, FreeBSD[1], Rails[2], Debian[3]. Many big commercial entities also opt not to use "Taiwan, PRC" in their country list, like: Apple[4], IBM[5], also try Google, Facebook, Twitter, et cetra. A possible solution might be using the country name list from ICU[6].
I believed the ArchLinux is trying to expand its user-base around the world, so a neutral country name list would be the best for the benefit of all of us, ArchLinux developers and users. As a Taiwanese ArchLinux user, I'm really happy to see that user base of ArchLinux is growing in Taiwan. Some educational institutions provide mirrors site in Taiwan, Wiki localized in Traditional Chinese in the recent years. I sincerely hope this issue can be resolved as soon as possible. Let's keep the issue simple and not flaming it, thanks.
References:
[1] FreeBSD: http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/query-pr.cgi?pr=138672 [2] Rails: http://www.koziarski.net/archives/2008/9/24/countries-and-controversies/ [3] Debian: http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2004/04/msg00798.html [4] Apple: http://www.apple.com/choose-your-country/ [5] IBM: http://www.ibm.com/planetwide/select/selector.html [6] ICU: http://source.icu-project.org/repos/icu/icu/trunk/source/data/region/en.txt
I agree. I'm very disappointed by the response of Dave Reisner on that bug report. The reality is that the PRC does not have jurisdiction or claim over Taiwan. When standards are false they should not be followed.
Dave: Can you educate yourself a little about the Republic of China and Taiwan vs the People's Republic of China, before making a final decision? Thank you.
This has been discussed a number of times. While no one has so far questioned the validity of the bug, the consensus seems to be that this should be taken upstream [0].
I hope it is clear that no offense is intended, and that we do not want to make any political judgments (and hence defer to the UN).
Gimme a break. These kind of political issues aren't solved by "taking it upstream". Since when are politicians or people under the influence of politics known for their outstanding adherence to logic and reason? It's not such a simple technical thing that you can "take it upstream." If you have any idea how the ISO works you will wake up to the fact of how ridiculous that suggestion is. If Taiwan (ROC) can't get it to happen, what do you expect of us?
Please note that noone here means any disrespect to citizens of Taiwan or other any country. But also not everyone is well educated in other countries' history (especially such fine-grained as that of Taiwan), nor does said education have highest priority. While many people understand that Province of China may sound offensive and certainly everyone recognizes Taiwan's sovereignty, you have to keep in mind that for a vast majority of users there is a little distinction between all the names Taiwan has been given by UN/ISO/... -- those are just designations. Therefore, taking this discussion to a public ML is educative and pointless as it will only feed the trolls (as you can already see). If you really feel like you have to, report the issue personally to the site maintainer or the project leader.
But as has been suggested maybe Arch should choose a different upstream for this kind of information. Please open your mind a little, a false standard is no standard at all.
-- Leonid Isaev GnuPG key: 0x164B5A6D Fingerprint: C0DF 20D0 C075 C3F1 E1BE 775A A7AE F6CB 164B 5A6D
On Sun, 1 Jul 2012 15:49:46 -0400 Loui Chang <louipc.ist@gmail.com> wrote:
On Sun 01 Jul 2012 21:23 +0200, Tom Gundersen wrote:
On Sun, Jul 1, 2012 at 7:28 PM, Loui Chang <louipc.ist@gmail.com> wrote:
On Sun 01 Jul 2012 23:08 +0800, Zero, Chien-An Cho wrote:
Hello,
First of all, I am sorry to bring political issues to here. I have been using ArchLinux for years, deployed on many servers, though I'm not joining the community until now. The recent changes to the ArchLinux webpages (ex. Downloads, Mirror Status) is really offending Taiwanese people. I would like to bring up this issue, and
to resolve this issue.
I have posted this message on the forum: https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=144315 . The moderator suggested me to post on arch-general, so here it is. :) There is also a bug tracking issue submitted by other Taiwanese user that I'm requesting for reopen here: https://bugs.archlinux.org/task/30444
The following text is the same as the post on forum, except a few modification to make text smoother.
The recent changes on the download page named Taiwan as Taiwan, Province of China, which is not reflecting the truth that Taiwan is a independent country which having its own government. I think this might be caused by following the ISO-3166 country name list standard. However, I don't think ISO-3166 is a good list when it comes to the country name.
Many open source communities have encountered this problem before. Most of them understand that ISO-3166 is not really a neutral list that we all hope for, and thus made switch to a separate maintained country list. For example, FreeBSD[1], Rails[2], Debian[3]. Many big commercial entities also opt not to use "Taiwan, PRC" in their country list, like: Apple[4], IBM[5], also try Google, Facebook, Twitter, et cetra. A possible solution might be using the country name list from ICU[6].
I believed the ArchLinux is trying to expand its user-base around
world, so a neutral country name list would be the best for the benefit of all of us, ArchLinux developers and users. As a Taiwanese ArchLinux user, I'm really happy to see that user base of ArchLinux is growing in Taiwan. Some educational institutions provide mirrors site in Taiwan, Wiki localized in Traditional Chinese in the recent years. I sincerely hope this issue can be resolved as soon as possible. Let's keep the issue simple and not flaming it, thanks.
References:
[1] FreeBSD: http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/query-pr.cgi?pr=138672 [2] Rails:
http://www.koziarski.net/archives/2008/9/24/countries-and-controversies/
[3] Debian: http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2004/04/msg00798.html [4] Apple: http://www.apple.com/choose-your-country/ [5] IBM: http://www.ibm.com/planetwide/select/selector.html [6] ICU:
http://source.icu-project.org/repos/icu/icu/trunk/source/data/region/en.txtP...
other any country. But also not everyone is well educated in other countries' history (especially such fine-grained as that of Taiwan), nor does said education have highest priority.
While many people understand that Province of China may sound offensive and certainly everyone recognizes Taiwan's sovereignty, you have to keep in mind that for a vast majority of users there is a little distinction between all the names Taiwan has been given by UN/ISO/... -- those are just designations.
Therefore, taking this discussion to a public ML is educative and
it will only feed the trolls (as you can already see). If you really feel
you have to, report the issue personally to the site maintainer or the
Well... Given the action taken by some developers in this thread, I can't imagine what will happen if we take this issue to the maintainer privately. I understand there is no insult intention by everyine, but by using that word, it IS offending. I am not asking everyone to be educated about our history nor asking everyone to understand, and that is exactly the reason why I provided so many references in my post. To help people get a quick concept of what our demand is and to know how other communities and company did about this. That being said, let's continue to have a constructive conversation. :) I don't think that a country name can be easily defined by a so-called standard. A country's name should be decided by its people or, at least, the local authority. Open the Taiwan official website in English, you will see we actually called Republic of China, or a more common and neutral word, Taiwan[1]. There are many authorities data listed us as Taiwan as well, like the CIA world book[2]. We are not the only country being affected by this false standard. See the Rails reference in my original post or Yao-Wei's mail for more information. I think Yao-Wei's idea of using common names is good. [1] http://www.taiwan.gov.tw/mp.asp?mp=999 [2] https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/tw.html ArchLinux is a user-centric system defined in the Arch Way, so please at least take our opinion seriously. Don't reject it on the first sight by just saying we're following a standard. Thanks. On Monday, July 2, 2012, Leonid Isaev <lisaev@umail.iu.edu> wrote: preferably the that noone here means any disrespect to citizens of Taiwan or pointless as like project
leader.
But as has been suggested maybe Arch should choose a different upstream for this kind of information. Please open your mind a little, a false standard is no standard at all.
-- Leonid Isaev GnuPG key: 0x164B5A6D Fingerprint: C0DF 20D0 C075 C3F1 E1BE 775A A7AE F6CB 164B 5A6D
-- Best Regards, Zero, Chien-An Cho
[2012-07-02 10:52:27 +0800] Zero, Chien-An Cho:
That being said, let's continue to have a constructive conversation. :)
No. This is a Linux distribution; deciding what countries should be called is just not what we do. Our website uses the django country list; please direct any complaints there. -- Gaetan
I could totally understand that you think this is none of your business. But please kindly put yourself in our shoes, what would you feel when you try to download iso image of ArchLInux, and find out the name of you're country has ", Province of China" fallowed by it? You know there's no offense, it's just because some standard listed it like that. I don't know what you would think, but for us, it's just wrong, so I bag for you're kindness. I believe the site is controlled by ArchLinux and ArchLinux can easily change this behavior, please do us this little favor. BTW, is the mentioned "django country list" this one? http://code.google.com/p/django-countries/ Sincerely 2012/7/2 Gaetan Bisson <bisson@archlinux.org>
[2012-07-02 10:52:27 +0800] Zero, Chien-An Cho:
That being said, let's continue to have a constructive conversation. :)
No. This is a Linux distribution; deciding what countries should be called is just not what we do. Our website uses the django country list; please direct any complaints there.
-- Gaetan
[2012-07-02 12:33:17 +0800] albertsong:
But please kindly put yourself in our shoes, what would you feel when you try to download iso image of ArchLInux, and find out the name of you're country has ", Province of China" fallowed by it?
Thanks but I already understand the issue. Honestly, what do you think is best: - Get the name fixed in the upstream database, so all projects who rely on it (not just Arch) can benefit from the improvement. - Have us, non-specialists on country naming issues, maintain a special patch against this database for the sole benefit of our website?
BTW, is the mentioned "django country list" this one? http://code.google.com/p/django-countries/
Yes. See line 13 of: http://projects.archlinux.org/archweb.git/tree/mirrors/views.py -- Gaetan
participants (15)
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albertsong
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Allan McRae
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Andrew Hills
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BlissSam
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Damjan
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Devon Sawatzky
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Gaetan Bisson
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Leonid Isaev
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Loui Chang
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Myra Nelson
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Pierre Schmitz
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Tom Gundersen
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Yao Wei (魏銘廷)
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Zero, Chien-An Cho
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逸冰欧阳