Re: No Flags "Policy"

[Nestor Diaz Valencia <nestordiaz barriolinux net>]

If grown ups cannot distinguish between governments/flags/languages/human 
people, maybe we should start a no-language ungraphical interface, so nobody 
will be upset by anything.
Yours:
Nestor Diaz

El Sábado 22 Noviembre 2003 17:06, Danilo Segan escribió:
> 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
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