Debian and Taiwanese independence [LWN.net]

Debian and Taiwanese independence

Posted May 28, 2004 1:00 UTC (Fri) by giraffedata (subscriber, #1954)
Parent article: The new Debian kernel team

I was intrigued by this intersection of politics and operating system design, so I checked into the controversy and read the mailing list thread. Here's what I found.

Herbert Wu's actual explanation of why he resigned is, "I do not wish to be associated with people who're actively working towards the independence of Taiwan."

Here's some very brief background of the political issue for those who don't know about it: The island of Taiwan is considered by some to be a sovereign nation and by others to be a province of China. And others think it's somewhere in between and should move one direction or the other. This has been going on for over fifty years. The government of China definitely considers Taiwan a province of China.

The controversy surrounds a part of Debian that asks you to choose a country from a list. The list is primarily from the ISO standard ISO 3166, which is the standard that defines those codes like "us" for USA and "ch" for Switzerland. ISO 3166 defines "tw" and says it is "Taiwan, province of China." But Debian varies from ISO 3166 here and instead lists simply "Taiwan." Furthermore, is says of the list, "choose a country."

Debian maintainers claim this is for simplicity -- that the simple "Taiwan" conveys the relevant information sufficiently and that the only reason to add extra words would be to make a political statement. They say "choose a country" is oversimplified for the same reason. Of course, some people believe actively omitting the extra words is itself a political statement.

Some people (principally, Chinese) find it offensive to Chinese people to suggest that Taiwan is a separate country. Apparently because that in turns suggests there's some reason not to be part of China, i.e. that China is not a nice place.

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Debian and Taiwanese independence

Posted May 29, 2004 7:38 UTC (Sat) by komarek (guest, #7295) [Link]

The wishes of all of the Taiwanese are not as easily divined as you suggest. It isn't even clear that a majority of Taiwanese support full independence from mainland China. Any simple statement about the relation of Taiwan and China is likely uninteresting or wrong.

-Paul Komarek

[nt] s/country/locale/; "problem solved"; next;

Posted Jun 3, 2004 15:03 UTC (Thu) by ccshan (guest, #2723) [Link]

Unfortunately, I'm sure that some Chinese and some Taiwanese people would not be happy about the solution you propose.

It is worth noting, however, that the same menu already also lists Hong Kong and Palestine.

[nt] s/country/locale/; "problem solved"; next;

Posted Jun 3, 2004 22:51 UTC (Thu) by bronson (subscriber, #4806) [Link]

Depending on the outcome of Sharon and Mubarak's talks in the last two weeks, listing Palestine might actually become correct some time in the mid-term future... We'll see.

Debian and Taiwanese independence

Posted Jun 6, 2004 9:00 UTC (Sun) by smurf (subscriber, #17840) [Link]

The problem I had with Herbert's point of view is that, as far as I can tell from my after-the-fact reading of that thread, nobody actually *did* "work towards the independence of" anything.

All people did was, IMHO, to recognize that there's a problem, and discuss possible solutions. One of these solutions apparently doesn't bear even talking about, in Mr. Xu's opinion.

IMHO that reaction is WAY over the top. I could understand (and would support) him if people had been talking about something atrocious like, just to pick a current-world example, killing off all the (Palaestinians|Jews) as a possible solution to the Mid-East conflict -- but not if the topic under discussion is whether it's worse to offend group A or group B with the wording of a locale name. :-/

(NB: This is not the place to debate whether Taiwan is, or is not, in fact an independent place|country|whatever.)

Debian and Taiwanese independence

Posted Jun 6, 2004 15:01 UTC (Sun) by giraffedata (subscriber, #1954) [Link]

I'm pretty sure Herbert's "working toward independence" refers not to the discussion, but to the distribution of Debian with Taiwan listed as if it's a sovereign country. The maintainer of the country chooser already distributes Debian that way and told Herbert he would continue to do so.

It's still way over the top. The effect that the wording of Debian's country list will have on Taiwanese independence is too small to worry about, and the probability that the maintainer chooses to word it that way in order to effect Taiwanese independence is even smaller.

I suspect Herbert isn't being completely honest and what he really objects to, rather than working with people who are working toward making Taiwan independent, is working with people who think it already may be. It isn't fun being around people who don't conform to your view of the world.

Debian and Taiwanese independence

Posted Jun 6, 2004 16:50 UTC (Sun) by smurf (subscriber, #17840) [Link]

The Debian maintainer's choice can be overridden if necessary. I suspect, though, that Herbert knows very well that the chance of this actually happening in this case is somewhat small.

My personal point of view is admittedly rather simple: the people to whom this matters most is, in the first approximation, the people living in/on Taiwan; unlike those in mainland China, AFAIK, they are free to choose whether to re-join the former. So far, they didn't. QED.

This simple view may not map very well to the real world; but then, this is Debian. Debian isn't in the business of faithfully mirroring 100% of the real world...

Debian and Taiwanese independence

Posted Jun 7, 2004 6:46 UTC (Mon) by giraffedata (subscriber, #1954) [Link]

The Debian maintainer's choice can be overridden if necessary.

I don't think that changes anything. The fact that Taiwan appears in a list of countries someone else made up is going to prejudice a user, ever so slightly, toward thinking that Taiwan is a country. Bad for Herbert's cause.

they are free to choose whether to re-join the former. So far, they didn't. QED.

(There's somewhat of a syntax problem here -- I assume you're talking about Taiwan rejoining mainland China).

I think you're missing the fundamental point of this controversy. Herbert would say there's nothing to rejoin because Taiwan never left: China allows Taiwan a measure of self-government, in the same way that the USA allows Puerto Rico and California a measure of self-government, but that doesn't make it a sovereign country. That could be more than a semantic issue some day, as it was when Iraq tried to assert the non-sovereignty of its Kuwait province in 1991.

Debian and Taiwanese independence

Posted Jun 7, 2004 11:36 UTC (Mon) by Russell (guest, #1453) [Link]

Who are you to judge what it WAY over the top? Are you Mr Xu?

If you lived in israel or palenstine you'd be particularly sensitive to local issues. If you lived in the US, you'd be sensitive to russians, chinese, muslims, french, "weapons of mass destruction", the price of oil, and the export of technology jobs to india.