Comment 1 Gavin Atkinson 2009-09-09 20:46:58 UTC

The list of countries in sysinstall are generated from 
src/share/misc/iso3166 which is based on the official ISO3166 list of 
countries found at http://www.iso.org/iso/country_codes.htm

http://www.iso.org/iso/country_codes/iso_3166-faqs/iso_3166_faqs_specific.htm
provides justification for the use of this name by ISO.

Please note that the first PR you cite, 68226, is actually requesting the 
country name be changed the other way: In FreeBSD 5.2.1, the country was 
named "Taiwan" in src/share/misc/iso3166 and that PR seems to be 
requesting that is be referred to as "Taiwan Province of China".

However, I will leave this PR open, as it appears from the link you 
supplied that the Debian community at least have come to a clear consesnus 
on this and feel the country should be referred to as "Taiwan".  I'm not 
in a position to decide either way.

Gavin

The term "Province of China" is polictically biased as mentioned in the
Debian mailing list. Those who are familiar with the history of Taiwan
should know that China has never been in control of Taiwan since the
establishment of the Republic of China, the current governent that
resides in Taiwan.

The only reason the term exists is because of political pressure from
the People's Republic of China. In every aspect, Taiwan is an
independent country comparable to the United Kingdom, United States,
Canada, and Australia. I also remember that there is an on going lawsuit
trying to correct the country code in ISO 3166.

Now the question is whether we should allow politics interefere with the
FreeBSD Project. I am of the opinion that we shouldn't be politically
biased.

-- 
Denny Lin

Comment 3 Remko Lodder 2009-09-10 18:00:08 UTC

State Changed
From-To: open->suspended

I think this is a real difficult and political problem. 
We try to make the world as best as possible for everyone 
unfortunatly this is not possible in this case; there will 
always be people sad because of the current line, no matter 
whether we will change this. 

For now we follow ISO3166, if that changes, we will change 
along. 

FreeBSD does not and will not be involved with world politics! 

Suspend the PR till the ISO changes (or prior if this gets 
outdated).

While we follow ISO3166, ISO themselves have said many times (in
responding to Taiwan's request to change the country name in ISO3166)
that the ISO3166 standard defines only the "country codes," not the
"country names."  SVN rev 189767 was intended to use "official English
short country names."  However, since ISO3166 does not define country
names, the only thing official in ISO3166 are the country codes.  The
official name of a country should be up to the people of that country,
not ISO or UN or anyone else.  If we need another "official" source of
country names, check out for example the CIA world factbook:
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/tw.html
.  The conventional short form of the country name is listed as Taiwan
in there.  CIA is at least a real government entity, while ISO is not.
 Since there are multiple "official" sources of country names, we
should at least choose one that the people of the country in question
prefers.  After all, where we use the country names (e.g. in
sysinstall menu), is meant for the users in that country to recognize
and choose.  Why should someone in another country care what some
other country is called anyway?

-- llwang

"FreeBSD does not and will not be involved with world politics! "
I totally agree with this - but I think using ISO3166 is not a proper way
when it comes to "country names".

As the previous reply said, ISO3166 should be only used for the country cod=
e,
not the names - it's just a memo from the Maintenance Agency=E2=80=8E to
identify the country,
not a standard of country names.

In fact, even IBM is not suggesting to use the names from ISO3166
http://www-01.ibm.com/software/globalization/topics/writing/references.jsp
I believe the country names listed there are supposed to help people
select their own
country; in this way, a common (or usual) name used by most software
is more prefered
than a non-official memo field

Let's look at PR 68226 again: it's a request trying to change some
country's name,
by the name of ISO3166. However the FreeBSD commiter apparently knows the
reporter's intention, so he replied "I think that's no the technical
problem, it's the politics problem."

Also look at PR 68495 http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/query-pr.cgi?pr=3D68495
The FreeBSD maintainers again declared to keep the name.

In order to prevent getting involed with politics, I suggest following
the strategy of 68226
and 68495 to keep the names instead of using ISO3166.

Just like PR68495 said, "The FreeBSD installation only wants to know
where you approximately live",
so the names listed there should be a neutral geographic term instead
of political Nationality names -
which we should remove the terms like "Province of XXX".

I also found some articles discussing ISO3166 in open source world:
http://yllan.org/blog/archives/296
"I don=E2=80=99t think it=E2=80=99s a clever way to ease a controversial is=
sue by
replacing a neutral term
 with political term just because the political term come with a so
called =E2=80=9Cstandard=E2=80=9D for OTHER thing."
"A standard isn=E2=80=99t necessary to be political correct in all contexts=
.
eg. you may insult many people
 by simply adopt the definition of some terms in Webster 2nd ed. There
is no reason you should
 blindly follow a standard if you know that=E2=80=99s problematic. There is=
 no
reason you just blame the
 questioners barking up the wrong tree without correct the error in
your product."

In article <mit.lcs.mail.freebsd-bugs/200909091950.n89Jo4As036069@freefall.freebsd.org> you write:

> The list of countries in sysinstall are generated from 
> src/share/misc/iso3166 which is based on the official ISO3166 list of 
> countries found at http://www.iso.org/iso/country_codes.htm

Note that ISO 3166 assigns "country" codes to many things which are
not countries, but for which it is convenient to have a standardized
code.  (Including, for example, American Samoa, Guam, Puerto Rico, the
U.S. Virgin Islands, the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands,
and the "United States Minor Outlying Islands".)  So, as ISO itself
states, it should not be considered as taking a position on who has
authority to say what the name of any particular entity is.

-GAWollman

Dear all,

According to article 2 of the 1895 Treaty of Shimonoseki, Qing Empire  
has ceded to Japan in perpetuity and full sovereignty several  
territories including Taiwan and the Pescadores (Penghu). So Taiwan  
became part of the Japanese territory.

On 1951/9/8, Japan and 48 other countries signed the San Francisco  
Peace Treaty.
According to its article 2(b), Japan has renounced all right, title  
and claim to Taiwan and the Pescadores. Note that China is a non-party  
to the treaty. So, according to article 25, China was not given any  
right, title or claim to Taiwan and the Pescadores!

Hence Taiwan cannot be a province of China.


Best regards,

Ching-Lueh Chang


----------------------------------------------------------------
This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program.

I support changing it back to Taiwan for the following reasons.

1) As stated in PR6845, "The FreeBSD installation only wants to know  
where you approximately live".
For that purpose, it is most useful to choose a synonym that is  
recognized by most people.
If you search these two terms on the web, you will see that most of  
the people use "Taiwan" instead
of "Taiwan, Province of China".
( ref. http://www.googlefight.com/index.php?lang=en_GB&word1=Taiwan&word2=Taiwan%2C+Province+of+China 
  )

2) The term "Taiwan, Province of China" is very offensive to people  
come from Taiwan.
It is strange to blindly use a controversial term in standard just  
because it is a "standard" and ignore
the feeling of the people that you are attaching that term to. In the  
end, I think
people have the right to choose what their living place to be called.

3) Even in the US Law, people use the term "Taiwan" to refer to  
"Taiwan".
(ref. http://www.ait.org.tw/en/about_ait/tra/ )

So it is very clear that Taiwan is a better choice because more people  
use it and
less people are offended by it.


Wei-Chun.

Although it has been stated several times that it's a political
problem instead of a technical ones, it shall be also pointed
out, the decision of simply following ISO 3166 in FreeBSD is
nonetheless, political.

The ISO 3166 FAQ has an entry on the naming of Taiwan issue:

     http://www.iso.org/iso/country_codes/iso_3166-faqs/iso_3166_faqs_specific.htm

Please notices the facts that:

- UN holds strong positions in the making ISO 3166
- Taiwan has never been the member of UN
- The names in ISO 3166-1 are taken from United Nations sources

Being a technology leading country, I guess Taiwan has been
politically weak for way too long. The application to be UN
member has been failed for very long time. It's not like Taiwan
government has never put effort on it, they tried, for tens of
years, but the political force against their efforts has been
huge.

Is it really politically neutral to follow ISO 3316 ? Please
re-think about it. It is indeed very technically convienent to
simply use ISO 3316 database because it contains a lots of
country names. But the outcome of leaping without thinking, could
be very bad.

I've always think it's fairly neutral not to use "Country"
selector in but "Region" selector (in whatever program UI.)
Region is a much better choice since the word itself doesn't not
refer to political identity of the its residents.

It's really a simple problem,
RESPECT the people leaving in that region and use the appropriate name
to address them.
The current name you have chosen to use, though provided by ISO, is
already known to be offensive,
so why use it?


hyt.

Comment 11 Yen-Ming Lee 2009-09-17 04:14:54 UTC

Obviously "Taiwan, Province of China" will piss off the users and
committers in Taiwan.

As discussed before, please respect our culture and simply call us "Taiwan".
See http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/cvs-doc/2008-August/018884.html

Thanks,
-- 
Yen-Ming Lee

Folks,

Basically, as a Taiwanese, I second that is strongly offensive to
people from Taiwan using the term "Taiwan, Province of China".
Ironically, Taiwan authority never join the constitute of ISO 3166.

I think this political issue will *NOT* be solved in the near future
(well, before the shipping date of 8.0-R, even the 10.0-R). The best
way to get rid of controversies is use the term "Country / Region"
instead of "Country". And calling "Taiwan" as previously used.

Thanks and please respect our culture.

--Ed

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I agree with Kang-min's opinion.  FreeBSD, as well as any project that
tries to be political neutral, should not use country names listed in
the ISO3166 table as the official source of country names.  The ISO3166
standard defines only country codes, not country names.  The country
names listed in the ISO3166 table is simply taken from the UN source,
which is by no means political neutral, as Taiwan is not a member of
the UN, and therefore is not listed in the UN's bulletin of country
names, and does not have a say in its own name in the UN.  By using the
country names listed in the ISO3166 table, we become political biased
to the UN, offend users in Taiwan, without being any more standard
compliant.

- -- llwang
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like what Kang-min Liu said,

"Although it has been stated several times that it's a political
problem instead of a technical ones, it shall be also pointed
out, the decision of simply following ISO 3166 in FreeBSD is
nonetheless, political."

and you said you freebsd will not be invoived with world politics ?

 > FreeBSD does not and will not be involved with world politics!
 > Suspend the PR till the ISO changes (or prior if this gets
 > outdated).

wtf , if you pretend to "We try to make the world as best as possible  
for everyone",
that's very *DISGUSTED*

you should REMOVE IT. if you're not going to remove the "Province of  
china"
then **I WILL NOT TO USE FreeBSD ANYMORE**!

There's no need to flame anyone; the problem can be solved in a
civilized manner.

I don't know if anyone's still following this PR, but I'd like to add
something.

As remko@ mentioned earlier:
> We try to make the world as best as possible for everyone
> unfortunatly this is not possible in this case; there will
> always be people sad because of the current line, no matter
> whether we will change this.


I believe that reverting back to "Taiwan" would probably end this
dispute, since it is a better option in my opinion.

As far as I know, many users of FreeBSD in Taiwan have been pissed of by
the use of "Taiwan, Province of China." However, no one has complained
about the name "Taiwan" yet. The people who have submitted followups
either have 1) a neutral status or 2) would like to see "Province of
China" removed. Therefore, changing the name back to "Taiwan" would
probably keep everyone happy.

If there are any users who support the addition of "Province of China,"
I urge them so speak up. If no one does, then there isn't a justified
reason to keep "Province of China" attached.

-- 
Denny Lin

Comment 16 Remko Lodder 2009-11-05 17:29:05 UTC

State Changed
From-To: suspended->closed

This had been reverted as per request of core.