[arch-general] Country Name (ISO-3116) Issues

[Zero, Chien-An Cho]

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 at umail.iu.edu> wrote:
> On Sun, 1 Jul 2012 15:49:46 -0400
> Loui Chang <louipc.ist at 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 at 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.txtPleasenote
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
>

-- 
Best Regards,
Zero, Chien-An Cho