On 06/06/18 16:31, Ian Jackson wrote:
> Daniel Pocock writes ("Bug#900849: allowing alternative country lists on a
> Debian host/installer"):
>> I've been thinking about technical solutions to help the country list
>> bug[1] and the following possibility came to mind:
>>
>> - define a virtual package with a name like "country-codes"
>
> I have read through the "country list bug" (#872867) and my analysis
> of this problem is as follows:
>
> * The purpose of the installer's "country list" is to provide helpful
> defaults for a lot of configuration settings that vary from one
> place to another.
>
> * To serve this purpose, it is not necessary or desirable for the
I'm not only talking about the installer though, I opened this bug for
both the installer and post-install. The analysis you provide is very
good for the installer and I would also be very interested in any
thoughts you have about how it should work after install.
There are various organizations and businesses who use the GENC list
instead of the ISO list. Mozilla recently chose to use GENC, as noted
in their bug tracker. Companies that deal with cross-border activities,
e.g. airlines, may also be choosing GENC.
> installer's list to contain only "countries" (whatever that might
> mean). This is because:
> - Different people have different views about what counts
> as a country (or what the name of a country might be).
> Debian is ill-equipped to resolve these questions.
> - Sometimes the configuration might need to be different
> for different parts of the same "country" anyway.
> - Even if we had an agreed list of countries, their
> official names not provide the most helpful choice for users.
>
> * In some cases a generally-recognised country will have so many
> regions that it is not sensible to provide a top-level menu entry
> for them. Eg, the states of the USA. In that case a submenu
> will be appropriate.
>
> * If iso country codes are used internally, that is an implementation
> detail. Where a region which ought to appear in the list does not
> have an iso country code, a different technical solution should be
> adopted.
>
> * It is not desirable to try to solve this problem by providing some
> kind of alternative country code list for use by custom installers.
> Of course local derivatives with different installer defaults may
> make sense, but Debian upstream installers should work properly for
> everyone.
>
> I conclude that:
>
> * The description of the list should be changed from "countries" to
> "regions and countries".
>
> * An entry should be provided in this list (specifically, a region
> should be broken out from any possible parent(s)) when any of the
> following are true:
> (i) The region wants to have different configuration or
> different defaults;
> (ii) Users may not recognise the parent region name(s) as
> applicable to them
> This also applies when the region is not strictly speaking bounded
> geographically. For example, it applies when considering different
> different political alignments (or, perhaps cultural, religious or
> or ethnic groups) of people within a single geogrpahic region.
>
> * If there would otherwise be a large number of entries for a
> particular region or country, use of a submenu is appropriate.
>
> * Names should be primarily chosen so that users know what entry to
> pick in the menu; but it is reasonable to try to avoid giving
> offence.
>
> Some worked examples:
>
> * Kosovo obviously needs to have its own entry.
>
> * Taiwan and the PRC need to be different entries. The Taiwan one
> should probably be labelled "Taiwan (ROC)", and the PRC one "China
> (PRC)" because those will be recognised by more people and give
> less offence.
>
> * In principle, there should be an entry for Uyghurs in Xinjiang who
> wish to use the region's unofficial timezone (which is more suited
> to local solar time than official PRC time), and the Uyghur
> language. But in practice actually selecting such an option in
> one's computer configuration is likely to be very dangerous[1]
> so we might be doing Uyghur users a disservice by offering them
> this option. This is a difficult case.
>
> * I think it will be necessary to have separate options in Bosnia
> for the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina on the one hand,
> and for the Republika Srpska on the other.
>
> * Belgium needs two entries. AIUI the keyboards as well as the
> languages are different.
>
> * AIUI it would not be necessary to provide any entries for Kashmir;
> the user can select India or Pakistan as appropriate.
>
> I could be wrong about the details above.
>
> Ian.
>
> [1] see eg
>
> https://www.economist.com/briefing/2018/05/31/china-has-turned-xinjiang-into-a-police-state-like-no-other
>
