Debian and Taiwanese independence

Posted Jun 6, 2004 9:00 UTC (Sun) by smurf (subscriber, #17840)
In reply to: Debian and Taiwanese independence by giraffedata
Parent article: The new Debian kernel team

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 (guest, #1954) [Link] (2 responses)

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] (1 responses)

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 (guest, #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.