Re: [Fwd: Username length limitation]

[Ross Golder <ross golder org>]

เมื่อ อ. 2006-02-14 เวลา 12:08 -0800, C.J. Adams-Collier เขียนว่า: 
> Upon further reflection, I also believe that 8-char ascii-only user
> names are discriminatory in nature and limit the participation of the
> GNOME development community greatly to those who are trained in the
> English language, and more strictly, the United States.

How so? In what way does an 8-char ASCII-only user name discriminate
against people, or limit their ability to participate in the GNOME
projects. Please clarify.

As far as I am aware, the English language is the 'lingua franca' of the
modern world. To participate in almost any international project you
need to use the English language, and in particular the roman alphabet
to communicate. It is the de-facto way of working. How often do you see
an international delegate wearing a namebadge that only they can read?

Come to think of it, how often do you see 'Made in China' written in
Chinese? ;)

>   I think that
> we as a group would do well to remove this discriminatory limitation
> from not only GNOME, but the services that we use.  I feel that we
> should move to update any standards that explicitly deny non-ASCII
> character sets, such as UTF8.

Just because the technology can do it, doesn't mean the humans involved
can (or should have to). Our accounts team consist of volunteers from
several different countries. None of them have any problem setting up
accounts using normal ASCII characters, but I expect they may have
problems if asked to set up login accounts, or look into problems using
login accounts, where they were unable to even read the login name (and
had to continually cut'n'paste all the time).

My personal POV is that I don't see any big reason why we couldn't
entertain the idea of longer-than-8-char login names within reason -
i.e. to perhaps 12 chars, but I would certainly recommend against the
use of non-ASCII ones.

--
Ross