Re: No Flags "Policy"

[Danilo Segan <danilo gnome org>]

Damon Chaplin <damon karuna uklinux net> writes:
> Why do you have to remove them all? As long as apps can handle countries
> with or without flags I don't see the problem.

The reason for removing them is avoiding insulting/offending
users. And someone might be really offended if Gnome includes 190
flags, and yet doesn't include your flag only.

So, the resolution clearly must be all or nothing (if the reason for
the problem is offending users).

Flags are one of the source of problems that we *can* solve. There
are many problems that we can't solve (like names of countries being
offensive, but since those are translated, perhaps someone would
translate it the way it's not offensive in the target language).

I don't see this simply as a point about "not-shipping Linuxes", but
rather about end users: if we insult any of those (anyone remembers
the Temujin? ;-), we're on the wrong track.

> PS. I admit maybe we should remove the English flag, in case it upsets
> the Aussies :)

I know this is a joke, but I'm almost positive there must be someone
in Australia who is offended by English flag. We're not planning on
judging people by it, so lets avoid it.

Also, there certainly are folks in Serbia who are offended by Croatian
flag, and folks in Croatia who are offended by Serbian flag. I'm not,
but there may be completely valid reasons for being offended
(eg. someone saw his/her father being tortured in the name of country
while the flag was put out -- extreme example, hope no one will mind). 

I certainly don't think that people *should* be offended by Serbian
flag, but I guess there are some who are (flag did nothing after
all). It's not up to me, but it's up to me not to put Serbian flag in
their face. I can talk reasonably about it, but reason is usually not
enough in those cases (since it involves a lot of emotions).

In here it's sometimes the same with US flag -- no one will rush to
put it on the desktop (everyone remembers NATO bombing, led by USA).
Sure, many people are forgiving, but almost two thousand civilans have
died as a matter of "collateral damage", so that brings at least their
families as *potential* "US flag haters".

Also, many Albanians might be offended by Serbian flags and symbols,
for what has happened to their close ones.

These are only examples of all the possible insults a flag might
represent in a tiny (albeit quite "active" one) region of the Balkans.
Of course, flag is more recognizable and "authentic" than any other 
symbol (which makes it more insultive than eg. the country name).

I certainly think that even those who are misguided by being
offended with a certain flag still deserve the opportunity to learn
about Gnome, learn about Free Software, and get to hang with (not to
be hanged by ;) the community.

Once we get all users to not consider flags offensive (when we become
the point of reference for promoting tolerance :), we might consider 
including them back. But I won't hold my breath for it to happen.


As for technical solution, I think GSwitchIt should not look for
flags, but rather for *icons*.

So, it might use $gnomeprefix/share/pixmaps/gswitchit/sr.png for "sr"
keymap if it's present, and fall back to text if it's not. If it's
trying to load a keymap names "foobar", it should look for icon
"foobar.png" (or SVG, XPM, whatever). Someone would surely provide an
entire collection of flags for that purpose, but it would not be in
Gnome, and it wouldn't have to be flags (for instance, we might even
ship things like Eiffel tower for French, skiing resort for the
Swiss, and beer for the Czech or German :).


Cheers,
Danilo