Re: No Flags "Policy"

[Jeff Waugh <jdub perkypants org>]

<quote who="Christian Fredrik Kalager Schaller">

> It covers everything we need to cover. The political issues are just you
> making a mountain out of an anthill.

I fundamentally disagree. It is *not* my issue.

> Sun just sold a huge pile of GNOME desktops to China so it is clear that
> the fact that some of the official GNOME tarballs contains a tawainese
> flag is not something which hinders GNOME adoption in China.

There is absolutely no connection there whatsoever. Guarantee you Sun remove
the flags (or flag, if they're shipping localised versions of JDS).

> I would also like to point out that Chinese provinces do have their own
> flags (see sodipodi.net for flags of Hong Kong and Macau), so just
> including the flag of Tawain doesn't mean that GNOME acknowledges its
> status as an independent nation. 

Dude, this is more than just China and Taiwan.

> Also if the official line is that GNOME will not include flags because we
> are afraid it will hinder GNOME adoption in mainland China then that means
> that GNOME officially acknowledges that we support the mainland China's
> claims in regards to Taiwan and Tibet which will be very offensive to
> people living in those two areas.

Don't be a dolt, we're removing *all* the flags to avoid *all* of these
issues. Again, no connection.

> So please lets keep this technical and not try to play at politics. If
> there are good technical (including good UI design) reasons something
> shouldn't use flags as symbolism we replace it with something better (as
> soon as someone propose something that is actually better). And in cases
> where flags a good alternative or the best of several bad ones we use
> flags. 

The problem isn't technical.

> The fact that MS, Apple and other do include flags do hint about that even
> if flags have several weaknesses they do serve as the most recognizable
> graphics in many cases.

Localised versions. We don't do that.

- Jeff

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linux.conf.au 2004: Adelaide, Australia         http://lca2004.linux.org.au/
 
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