On Tue, Aug 22, 2017 at 12:28:18AM +0200, Daniel Pocock wrote: > Package: localechooser > Version: 2.69 > Severity: wishlist > > While visiting Kosovo, I have met several people interested in becoming > Debian users. > > The first time I helped one of them run the Debian installation, I was > baffled to find that their country was not in the list offered by the > installer. > > It is potentially not a good situation for a developer to be in a > country, surround by 1.8 million people who consider themselves to be > citizens of a country that our installer doesn't know about. > Fortunately Kosovans are really nice people and weren't upset about this > but I can image they must feel quite sad each time something like this > happens. > > According to this section in the Debian Installer i18n guide[1], the > list of countries is based on ISO3166. > > According to wikipedia, ISO3166 comes from a group of 10 > representatives[2] from mostly rich countries. >
The fact that these were rich countries doesn't matter, particularly. Internet TLDs are IETF, I think. There's also a UN list for things like car registrations and country codes. It's not quite as simple as it looks. > The Debian Social Contract[3], point 4, requires us to put our users > first. Can Debian do more to listen to the 1.8 million potential users > in Kosovo and other countries like it? Are we actually obliged to > respect how our users see themselves over and above the way some > bureaucrats in Geneva see them? > > I would propose that we regard ISO3166 as a subset of the list of > countries perceived by our users and that for the next installer > release, the locale chooser offers a list of countries with a disclaimer > that some of them are not in ISO3166 but they are included at the > request of our users. Please go back and review the lists for mails round Taiwan / Hong Kong / China / Taiwan (R.O.C) status - this sort of thing is incredibly tricky. Also, some countries / states / regions have two or three valid keyboard layouts, some groups span nation boundaries - Kurds spring to mind - and the installer is already complicated and arcane. Debian is apolitical and largely border-agnostic but we lost developers because of this sort of thing - ?? Herbert ?? Xu springs to mind. > > Maybe the list can show two columns, country and country code. For > countries where ISO3166 is not competent, the country code column could > be blank. > > Implementing this might be tricky but not impossible. For example, a > crude implementation may simply display the extra countries in the main > list, but if somebody selects one of them, the installer shows a message > apologizing for the fact they are not fully supported and offering to > help them choose from a subset of related country codes. Maybe their > preferred choice (verbose country name) could be saved somewhere for > later use when their country is fully supported and a future version of > localechooser will help them adapt to their eventual country code during > a future dist-upgrade. > > For Kosovo in particular, Wikipedia notes[4] that "The code XK is being > used by the European Commission > <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Commission>,^[21] > <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_3166-1_alpha-2#cite_note-21> the IMF > <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Monetary_Fund>, and SWIFT > <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Society_for_Worldwide_Interbank_Financial_Telecommunication>,^[22] > <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_3166-1_alpha-2#cite_note-22> CLDR and > other organizations as a temporary country code for Kosovo > <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kosovo>.". Other 2-letter codes are > mentioned elsewhere so the ideal solution may avoid using a 2 letter > code for such countries or maybe it can borrow one of the codes used by > other international organizations who didn't wait for ISO3166. Then when you find that there's two or three conflicting codes? See also the Russian / Ukrainian character set messes of long ago. [Windows character sets, koi8r and similar] All best, however, Andy C > > It may be interesting to support micronations like the Principality of > Hutt River[5] too. > > Regards, > > Daniel > > > 1. https://d-i.alioth.debian.org/doc/i18n/ch01s05.html#idm45330184240096 > 2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_3166#Members > 3. https://www.debian.org/social_contract > 4. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_3166-1_alpha-2 > 5. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principality_of_Hutt_River >
