Like the PR headaches with KDE were not enough for Red Hat, now it seems that Taiwanese people are unhappy because their flag was left out of the KDE control panel, while it was there by default. Also, “in a surprising move they’ve completely broken with their previous policy of 100% open source. The new distribution contains a few components which are (C) Red Hat and are *not* freely re-distributable”, the Linux Emporium claims. Discussion about the issue here and here.
Red Hat Hits More Sensitive Nerves
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Well, there’s no need to discuss it here then. They seem to have all the usual bases covered in those other 2 forums
Anyways, I’ve heard that the RedHat copyrighted components are just graphics files with the RH logo and trademarks. Any truth to that? Seems reasonable that they wouldn’t want RedHat based distros to use those (like they didn’t want them to use the RedHat name (ie: CheapBytes)).
As for the flag thing, what do they expect from RED Hat
Assuming the report is correct, I’m not surprised Red Hat is taking steps to prevent “Blue Derby Software” from legally selling CD clones of their distro @$4.99. The next step will be to enforce per-machine licensing for customers that don’t purchase a site license.
To me, this isn’t a violation of the ideals of open source, merely a recognition of the realities of running a business.
that Taiwanese people are unhappy because their flag was left out of the KDE control panel, while it was there by default.
Are they interested to sell to PR China? Mainland sees Taiwan as a “rebel province”.
So what – doesn’t the majority of the GNU/Linux fans always emphasize how important freedom and choice are? So leave Red Hat their freedom to do what they think is right while we have our freedom to chose or not to chose Red Hat.
Unlike the Windows or MacOS platform, you can actually change your OS vendor on GNU/Linux when you don’t like the latest version while still keeping all your software.
and people freaked. all they did was copyright their logos and icons, and some people think that it’s the end of the world.
companies have the right to do this to distinguish their brand from other brands, and I personally have no problem with it.
as for the flag thing, that’s just ridiculous. I’m sure they’ll recitfy it in the next release. They should make an apology though in trying to be a good citizen
–quoted by lycoris user–
as for the flag thing, that’s just ridiculous. I’m sure they’ll recitfy it in the next release. They should make an apology though in trying to be a good citizen
–/quoted by lycoris user–
I agreed, I don’t even care if there have no US, Canada and etc flags. Flags are just for kiddies..
I think the national flag really matters.
Please see
http://www.linux.org.tw/rh8-kde/
The website make it very clearly that this is unrespectful for Taiwanian people who use,translate,and develop KDE.
It’s really ridiculous that Taiwanian flag in KDE is a bug!!
Do you ever heard of U.S. flag or Japanese flag in KDE is a bug?!
It just goes too far.
I just installed RH 8.0 on my computer at home and changed BlueCurve to default KDE theme in one minute. I believe that those who cry about broken KDE never installed RH at all. Now they are crying about Taiwan flag. What’s next? Don’t like it don’t buy it. Oops, I mean don’t download it.
Green, what would you do if I went around posting insults about your mother? It should be fine, after all, you don’t have to read my posts. Of course, that’s silly. It would be offensive and you’d have legitimate reason to complain. Public actions have public consequences. If RedHat does something the community does not like, the community has every reason to complain. “If you don’t like it, don’t download it” or any other statement along those lines is simply a cop-out, and keeps real problems from being addressed.
The lost 11th Commandment – Thou shalt not place any flags on linux distros as it only gives you silly humans something to be sillier about
Taiwanian wrote: “It just goes too far.”
Too far from what? Has Red Hat consistently been disrespectful to the Taiwanese nationality? It looks more like this is a simple fluke.
Heck, that linux.org.tw page describes this as “nothing but an evil political attack against our nationality,” which seems to be going a tad overboard. Since when did Red Hat have significant political power?
Well, I believe that in the future when China will be No1 worldwide, will invade and take back Taiwan.So the flag issue is something temporary.
Yes,I think it does go too far.
The following lines in http://www.linux.org.tw/rh8-kde/
735 * Mon Aug 5 2002 Than Ngo [email protected] 3.0.2-7.2
736 – add patch file to fix kicker segfault (bug #69688)
737 – get rid of Taiwanese Flag in KDE (bug #70235)
Don’t you think it’s really ridiculous that Taiwan flag is a bug?
Have you ever heard that U.S. flag or Japanese flag is a BUG?I think not.
Geez, as if people don’t have enough to bitch and whine about.
I think they should bring back the flag, and make it a different color or turn it upside down, just to piss them off even more.
Why remove the Taiwan Flag ?!
Other distro don’t see the Taiwanese flag as a bug… A patch needs to be applied for the bug in some RH’s heads.
REDHAT Kdebase的src.rpm內有一個 kdebase.spec 的檔案, 在第558列:
In the REDHAT kdebase source rpm. kdebase.spec under line 558:
558 # remove taiwanese flag
559 %if %{redhatify}
560 rm -f $RPM_BUILD_ROOT%{_datadir}/locale/l10n/tw/flag.png
561 %endif
735 * Mon Aug 5 2002 Than Ngo [email protected] 3.0.2-7.2
736 – add patch file to fix kicker segfault (bug #69688)
737 – get rid of Taiwanese Flag in KDE (bug #70235)
830 * Mon Apr 4 2002 Bernhard Rosenkraenzer [email protected] 3.0.0-5
831 – Add fixes from KDE_3_0_BRANCH, except for the “F1 in konsole” change
832 (that one breaks things)
833 – Don’t show Taiwanese flag for zh_CN (#61946)
834 – Move in Red Hat splash screen
it’s only a fag, I meant flag..
The best thing for Red Hat (or any company) to do in a situation like this is simply follow a common standard.
In this case, Red Hat should probably just provide a flag icon for every nation that is a member of the UN, or something like that. Then when Taiwan or China complain, Red Hat can just say “we’re following the standard, if you don’t like the standard, complain to the UN”.
There’s nothing like passing the buck :^)
What’s happened to OSNews lately? All the AC’s from /. finally get tired of being modded down? Did any of you even read the article?
1) It’s not a fluke. Comebody actively removed the flag. There was even an entry in the bugfix list.
2) It’s not just a flag. A flag is a symbol of national pride. Taiwan is a country in a sticky political situation, and it means a whole lot more on their end than it does to clueless Americans over here.
3) That said, its probably an individual at RedHat’s end with a political agenda who didn’t get filtered out.
PS> How’d you like the clueless American bit? Doesn’t feel to good, does it? Well, some RedHat users in Taiwan are feeling a little bit of that right now.
This is entirely to appease government IT departments in the so called People’s Republic of China.
While Red Hat is entirely free to do such things it’s never the less bad PR to see the Raleigh company bow to the will of a human rights violating regime.
At the end of the day RH is a publicly held company with board members, stock holders and other such narrow minded people. The only thing that’s going to really matter to them for years to come is the bottom line.
A missing flag isn’t that important.
Some attempts to disable the people selling RH CDs for $4.99 really makes me think if RH is nothing but a bussiness, now trying to put its hand in the pockets of their userbase (makes me remind Microsoft).
Your name is defined you and yourself. You were born, and you had at least a name to identify in your life.
A flag is defined a nation, and a nation has at least a flag to symbolize itself.
Yes, Taiwan is a nation because it has land, culture, and government, which is defined under United Nations policies after the WWII end.
Please put the flag back.
Stomping on a flag is showing the deepest disrespect for that country’s people. You be the judge how utterly vicious that is.
I lived in Taiwan and I can tell you the flag issue on Taiwan has nothing to do with their independence/reunification dance. Each of China’s provinces has their own flag, like our states do. Even Hong Kong has one. By leaving out the Taiwanese flag you are insulting the people of Taiwan, whether they are pro China or pro independence. Its a pride thing.
“now it seems that Taiwanese people are unhappy because their flag was left out of the KDE control panel, while it was there by default.”
What does this mean exactly.. its there by default… or not..?
Anyway RedHat is the best linux distro out in nearly every aspect, you know why? not cause theyre genious but because they have to be. The linux community is FILLED with a bunch of geeks who have a “serious” underdog complex, if you’re big and rich “we f**kin hate you greedy Microsoft wannabe distros!” Mandrake can package Opera if they want, SuSe can keep the rights to a whole applications, but god forbid that mean redhat bully (who’s done more for the community than any other distro on the planet) take rights to one of the many things they’ve invented, or take a flag out and change a theme. Some of these losers need to listen to what you’re saying.
A flag IS a big deal! There is no way to justify the conscious decision to remove it from KDE. There is no way to dismiss the problem. There is no way to avoid responsibility for this act.
Yeah, it’s not important, until it’s yours.
I wouldn’t want to see the French flag removed, regardless of whether France was mostly under German rule for a few years in the 40s.
JBQ
And,
Taiwan is a democratic and freedom nation!
Why not support them?
Do you think the PR China did it?
Take care about it.
As far as not open AFAIKT RedHat is doing this with branding icons. Creating a redistributable ISO would be nice; but they are in the distribution business so that may be asking too much. All told no black mark.
As for the removal of the Taiwan flag I agree this was probably an employee at RedHat and not RedHat. OTOH its not uncommon for China to put a great deal of pressure on US companies over this issue so it might go up to executive management. But frankly the real problem is Taiwan. Taiwan is really trying to have it both ways; if they want to be treated as a seperate country they need to declare independence.
Maybe KDE and other projects should tack an amendment on their GPL licenses in future releases, specifying how certain branding elements, copyright notices, and other stuff should be treated. For example they could say that it’s all or nothing as far as including the flags are concerned.
This might actually help RH in cases like this since they could tell the Chinese government that their hands were tied.
All these flag based political arguments belong on Kuro5hin, where I enjoy reading them. But not here at OSNews.
A flag IS a big deal! There is no way to justify the conscious decision to remove it from KDE. There is no way to dismiss the problem. There is no way to avoid responsibility for this act.
I second that. Fully.
Using flags to identify different countries/languages isn’t exactly a good idea anyway. What about the flags of Australia, England, and the USA? They all speak english. So they all get their respective flag, but they do the same function? Sounds like bloat to me.
I say, remove all of the Countries flags.
Back before Linux the idea behind FSF software was simple. Give away the software. If you want to make money somewhere charge for support. That is what RH should do instead of making it illegal to copy their disks.
If they are just copyrighting their RH logo graphics would it be legal for me to grab a RH CD, remove the offending images and replace them with pictures of pasta and sell it for $4.99?
Just wondering.
Perhaps I’d be more sympathetic to Taiwan’s plight if they weren’t the only “nation” in the world to refuse to abide by the Berne convention and international copyright law. I have no love of software pirates.
Australia, England (I guess you mean UK) and USA use different currency, date, time representations. To speak in OSI model language: “the difference lays at the presentation layer”.
It gets even more interesting when it comes to keyboard layout: not only do you have dfferent layout for Australian, USA and British keyboards, you have different layouts for all these English-speaking countries:
– Canada
– New Zealand
– Jamaica
– Ireland
– South Africa
Emagius: I don’t think your personal feelings about Taiwan matter that much. Anybody in the KDE team could have some grudge with a certain country, and for much more serious reasons than abiding by the Beme convention. There still is noground for such a flagrant and blatant disrespect towards a nation.
I don’t get what this whole thing about the flag…
I mean, Ok…the flag isn’t there in Red Hat’s modded KDE, and it exist in the original KDE, is that correct?
Well, does KDE have all the flags of every country in the world? If not, why not? After all, we can argue that the countries are there, why didn’t KDE include all the flags possible, by not including a flag of a country, can we then also say that KDE has dis-repected that particular country?
Can you see the similarities in my arguement here?
I really think the flag is no big deal at all.
>>How’d you like the clueless American bit? Doesn’t feel to good, does it?<<
Don’t really care, so it doesn’t bother me. What, are the Taiwanese going to stop manufacturing chips and laptops and et cetera over this? Big F’in deal. It’s cheaper to produce them on the mainland anyway.
> really makes me think if RH is nothing but a bussiness,
Dah ! Red Hat *IS* a business, and *NOTHING* more. They have only one goal : make money. That’s it ! What do you think, they were some kind of God Avatars ? They don’t care about Linux itself, they care about make Linux a success to put more money in their pocket. Period.
> now trying to put its hand in the pockets of their userbase
It’s a *BUSINESS*, how do you think they pay their employees ? How they give profit back to the investors ? By putting hands in the userbase pocket.
Until the socialists get the people’s flag, (which is deepest red and shrouded oft our martyrs dead) I think we should all scream at redhat.scream at redhat.
This is about as ridiculous as this claim from Taiwanese. Nationalism is okay for other counties but not America? (I despise nationalism, so I think its totally unacceptable)
I mean next CoS will want to be called a religon.
in Red Hat 9.0 there exists the flag for Palestinian Territory, which is not yet a “nation”.
Why there’s a double standard for Taiwan and Palestinian Territory?
“A missing flag isn’t that important … Yeah, it’s not important, until it’s yours.”
Well, if they took out the American flag, I could care less. In fact, they could put a big “AMERICA SUCKS ASS” as the bootup logo, and I still wouldn’t care. Hell, if they did that, I’d probably buy the boxed version
You want to know what represents America? Not a flag, but a bunch of clueless, yuppie cocksuckers walking around ALWAYS with one hand on their platimum credit cards, and all of their Corporate masters – THAT’S what represents America.
You want to know what represents America? Not a flag, but a bunch of clueless, yuppie cocksuckers walking around ALWAYS with one hand on their platimum credit cards, and all of their Corporate masters – THAT’S what represents America.
Are you just bitter because the yuppie’s dells will no longer ceom from you? (It closed right?)
they’ve completely broken with their previous policy of 100% open source. The new distribution contains a few components which are (C) Red Hat and are *not* freely re-distributable
Maybe one day these communists will learn that the only way Linux is going to succeed is if it is commercialized.
Yes, it is just a flag.
But Boston Tea Party is also just cause Tea Tax.
“Why there’s a double standard for Taiwan and Palestinian Territory?”
because they are too different.People arount world support Palestinian but not taiwan.
taiwan is not a country,it’s a region,it’s a part of China.
read the history and it will tell you all about that.
the guys whos says taiwan is a country are the shame of HUAREN(people from China).
Good point, that Taiwan isn’t a country…didn’t cross my mind, but you’re right.
About Red Hat, um…it is still a business, but it has it’s own directives, and that’s keeping their distribution open source. some people are saying that RH 8 isn’t 100% open source, but I still haven’t heard which packages these are yet.
Thinking in other way.
If U.S.A’sflag is a big.
What do you think?
No policy.
Just be esteam.
Taiwan has her flag.
“taiwan is not a country,it’s a region,it’s a part of China”
It is fool policy think.
It should be posted at policy mail list,not this.
OpenSource shoule not have policy think.But take Taiwan’s
falg is not fair for Taiwan people.
If US’s flag is took,what does US’s people think?
-I agreed, I don’t even care if there have no US, Canada and etc flags.-
Until their own flag disappears but other flags still,nobody care if there is flags or not.That is unfairness,impoliteness,even a kind of descrimination.
There are so many great contributions from Taiwan to introduce Linux to Chinese language world,finally Taiwanness flag is taken as a “bug” in Linux??
That is the spirit of open source software to RedHat??
PEOPLE FROM TAIWAN DO CARE AND REALLY ANGRY!!
– Flags are just for kiddies..-
Maybe you don’t believe it,more and more kids in Taiwan begin to contact Linux. Everybody likes to use Linux,isn’t it??
It is kind of dirty . RH is quite strange to make this decision !!!
Taiwan definately has her own flag, and no matter you acknowledge her as a country/nation/region should respect the issue in advance. It’s not about political correct issue; it’s all about esteem.
Those who said it doesn’t matter are not facing severe situation we have been facing since the last century. Since we make equal efforts in open source group as other countries do, we should have the right to deside the identity of us. It’s not about independence, in some way I even agree the reunion; it’s about the identity of us.
If people offended the US, the US ppl would pay eye on eye; if US ppl saw their flags burned on TV, they would go nuts; if US ppl heard their national anthem, they would stand at attention and even cry. It’s not silly; it’s all patriotic. I respect and value it a lot.
But when it comes to others’ country, ‘it doesn’t matter.’ ‘it’s not a big deal.’ huh, it’s a global community, don’t judge your justice only when it’s beneficial. I wouldn’t say you would face the same situation in the future, ‘coz such unfair treats should not exist in the future. But please image one thing: since Taiwan IT company have large portion on IT component, if, and it’s just an WHATIF, all the companies from Taiwan put ‘United Suckers of Ass’ in their driver Language options, what would you do? Surly you might buy it from other company, but what else can you find? ASUS? Tyan? Gigabyte? ABit? MSI? IWill? EPox? huh.. well you might find some GOOD companies and use ANTITRUST againt us, perhaps. But how is that? Don’t tell me it’s impossible. I know it’s impossible, but I’m just curious what you US ppl would say. ‘It’s nothing.’ ‘It’s just a name.’ ‘It doesn’t matter.’ I am looking forward those answers.
Oh, yes, it’s all about business. So we might sell OTHER distribution to Middle East and remain the same tag for friendly USA users. I think it would be popular since they are so interested in burning strip flags. How is that?
Pay equal respects.
It’s a what the people living in Taiwan want to say!
Even universal doesn’t agree it but it’s true for 50 years
RH8.0 is just a program it should be justice to all “country”
i see another hacker war coming yay
737 – get rid of Taiwanese Flag in KDE (bug #70235)
What a bug is this ?
How could a flag be a bug ?
Why not other countries ?
How could software world be so political ?
Put it back , and fix now the bug you RH guys made !
Like some assholes bitching and whining about people whom endeavored to keep their dignity.
You are really a good pattern!!
You really should piss yourself off even more!
The Chinese government won’t allow a product to be sold that contains that flag image. Red Hat Linux 8.0 is GB18030 certified, so that probably means that removing the flag was part of the requirements.
People in Taiwan are using different coding method (BIG5) from China (GB), even having different governments.
Please fix this bug in KDE 3.0 and put two different flags for these two different places.
http://taipeitimes.com/news/2002/02/15/story/0000124045
http://www.taiwanheadlines.gov.tw/20011005/20011005s1.html
Isn’t Linux a “Free” OS ? Being a company for Free OS, why
RedHat choose to be a panda hugger? Yes, I know that communist China seems like Linux, but what’s their intention? Would they release source codes to their people with the Linux OS made by communist government? or they just want to use Linux to get more control of their people?
So it’s petty ironic that a company like RedHat choose to do this. This completely insult the spirit of “Free” OS.
Some silly guys are day-dreaming and also crying in this forum. They are dreaming that communist China is controlling Taiwan. Is it a “fact” ? Of course NOT. The fact is, Communist China never controls Taiwan. They are lying around the whole world.
So to those silly Chinese communists, stop day-dreaming and lying here, it’s pretty ridiculous!
Flag and National Anthem Of Taiwan:
http://www.copcity.com/anthems/roctw.html
Flag and National Anthem Of China:
http://www.copcity.com/anthems/china.html
Taiwanese will fight for their freedom.
Yes, I(a person from taiwan) do have the freedom to choose whichever disto I want to use.
But we are talking about respect here, even if i dont use RED HAT, i still HOPE they put our flag back.
<Quote>
Unlike the Windows or MacOS platform, you can actually change your OS vendor on GNU/Linux when you don’t like the latest version while still keeping all your software.
</Quote>
This is true for Joe Homeuser with tons of spare time on his or her time. It is not true for many businesses. You just don’t have the time to screw around with your computers (especially not your servers, and extra especially if they have to be up all the time, are high maintenance, and is what keeps the money flowing).
Next it is very much not true when your hardware vendor only supports one (or maybe two) distros, and that one happens to be Red Hat (which is the most common in my experience). Gentoo or Debian is not drop in replacements, they are not the same, paths are different, versions are different, binary compatibility is shot to hell, different compilers, different start up systems, the list goes on and on.
So please do separate home users and corporate users. I really would like to see a common base for all distros so that that they really can be drop in replacements for servers. That or for Gentoo to take over everything
A not about Taiwan: Red hat is fearful of China, since China is a potentially HUGE market, and they don’t want to piss them off. This reminds me of certain European countries looking the other way in the 1930s, or most of the world ignoring the systematic abuse of Women in many countries because they need them as allies for oil, against terrorism, or they just are too backwards to be cared about. Red Hat needs to stop doing this, the whole KDE mess is nothing compared to this, as it can be a prelude to ever worse acts.
RH should be ashamed no one should have there flag removed maybe TW people boycott them?? show them not to do such mean things flags are important.
In RedHat
Software written or translated in Traditional Chinese Big5 code
comes from Taiwan generality.
But,the funny thing is that
Taiwan’s Flag is a bug in RedHat!!!!
It is so ridiculous
What is the meaning of freedom for RedHat?
What is the meaning of freedom for Western countries??
In my option
Face china who will become NO.1 country, your own meaning of freedom
is only the thing that be stepped on by China.
Taiwan is a country or not
That is Taiwan’s determination.
not USA
even more China
the question is like
RedHat why you don’t change your name to Really Hate???
Taiwanese are complaining about a flag of an country that officially doesn’t exist (officially an renegrad province from mainland China).
I think Red Hat is better off keeping a good PR in China with a MUCH bigger market, and a growing market at that, and not with Taiwain with a small and possibly shrinking market.
Jeremy Friesner: In this case, Red Hat should probably just provide a flag icon for every nation that is a member of the UN, or something like that.
Hey, maybe Red Hat *IS* doing that. In the 70s, the People’s Republic of China took Republic of China (under the Koumintang, known as Taiwan). And for the past decade, they have been blocking Taiwan membership in the UN (as a superpower, they have the right to veto).
chicobaud: now trying to put its hand in the pockets of their userbase (makes me remind Microsoft).
You can still freely download their product, they just don’t want some cheap CD shop sell cheap CDs with their brands.
Chris: Each of China’s provinces has their own flag, like our states do. Even Hong Kong has one. By leaving out the Taiwanese flag you are insulting the people of Taiwan
Does Red Hat include flags of each state of China or the USA? Why is Taiwan given special privilegdes?
🙂
JBQ: I wouldn’t want to see the French flag removed, regardless of whether France was mostly under German rule for a few years in the 40s.
Back then, France was forced under German rule. The government formed wasn’t one where France and German is one country. France was considered by Germany and the French people to be a colony of Germany.
Plus, the fact that Taiwan neither wants in or out of China is a big reason.
William Yeh: in Red Hat 9.0 there exists the flag for Palestinian Territory, which is not yet a “nation”.
Cause there isn’t a country claiming Palestine to be a province of their country, only a country (Israel) occupying it.
Heck, I think they have a UN representation.
Master Chang: It is fool policy think.
It should be posted at policy mail list,not this.
LOL, probably it is because Taiwan never official declared independence, no less of getting a referendum.
Red Hat: Why not place back the flag for the version for Taiwan?
What puzzles me is those who are telling (educating, requesting, bombing, take your pick) people about democracy and freedom are often the same people who’d give up these values in exchange for business opportunity.
Now I see this happening in open source community.
Since when Mr. Torvalds became a customer of Hinet?
You stupid Chinese people, you never learn!
taiwan is not a country,it’s a region,it’s a part of China.
read the history and it will tell you all about that.
—————————————————
if you are really master at history, you will know it is NOT! Study first.
No doubt that Taiwan is a country.
But it’s been unlawfully occupied by the Chinese regime (Republic of China) for over 50 years. Therefore,
that flag is not Taiwan’s national flag. The flag belongs to a country that officially doesn’t exist.
Please visit:
http://www.taiwannation.com.tw/english.htm
http://www.taiwannation.com.tw/english2.htm
My suggestion to Redhat: create an icon that contains string “Taiwan” and put it into the fix as a temporary solution.
People of Taiwan will come out a new national flag of their own in just a few years.
Ming:
Taiwan is a country! Taiwan is *NOT* part of China.
The history they taught you back in China was a lie.
Now that you are in the states, go to any library and
learn the real history from the beginning.
Taiwanese:
Please read message carefully my response.
I should state correctly, TAIWAN is NOT part of china. If RH want to sell their products to Taiwan, they should respect the people in Taiwan. It is a disgraceful act, even it is for business.
Taiwan is a country,in political science
She has her own land.
She has her own people,her nationality and nationlism.
She has her own government, a government voted by Taiwanese.
She has her own suprenacy, a complete suprenacy of Taiwan island.
History is history.Acturally, People of China NEVER governed Taiwan in history, and NEVER after.By referendum and our construction, Taiwan is a country, not a part of China.We are a complete free and democratic nation
As shown here:
http://www.linux.org.tw/rh8-kde/picture/rh8.png
the flag was removed, but Taiwan is still in the list.
If you don’t akgnowledge Taiwan as a country, you should remove it alltogether. But ‘Palestinian Territory’ is by no means a country, and yet it’s in the list… BTW, both of the aforementioned have their own URL suffixes (.tw, .ps respectively).
Removing the entry from the list is a political attack and deserves all of your comments. Removing the flag is just plain stupid!
Sorry to go off-topic, but I wanted to address this falacy:
“If people offended the US, the US ppl would pay eye on eye; if US ppl saw their flags burned on TV, they would go nuts”
People *do* say extremely offensive things about the U.S. all the time. Publicly. Leaders, even. And Americans *do* see their flag burned on TV (this was broadcast just after 9/11). And Americans *don’t* pay it back, eye-for-an-eye.
Ok that’s end it all here. Brent I don’t know if you have followed the news after 9/11. Americans did pay it back, not eye-for-an-eye but went far beyond burning the flag of Afghanistan. This is completely off-topic but my point is you’d have the same reaction if someone offended your country. America gets lot of it, but 1) they are used to it 2) their international status doesn’t get affected by it.
And to the Taiwanese/Chinese posters, please save the “Taiwan is a country”, “No it’s not”, “Yes it is”, “No it’s not”….. type of posting. Really not helping.
Just for the record, I do support putting a flag next to Taiwan. It’s a representation of a region with particular language encoding/date format etc. and to that extent Taiwan, Hong Kong could share the same entry but definitely not China who uses a different coding system and written language.
The way Microsoft does it: in the version shipped to China, you get
“People’s Republic of China”,
“People’s Republic of China (Taiwan Privince)”,
“People’s Republic of China (Hong Kong SAR)”
and the Taiwanese version has:
“Taiwan”
“Hong Kong”
“People’s Republic of China”
which solves the problem and keeps everyone happy. Business is still business. RedHat should plan it more carefully so they don’t lose customers on either side.
As for the American part issue, I apologize if you get offended. But with no doubt there are still lots of disagreements as well as the Taiwan issue China disparages Taiwan. So please see things through our eyes.
Sorry that I got off the topic in the first place. The main issue here is, American people didn’t pay equal respects to those who were suffered; they are indifferent when it’s not about them. It’s just okay even though US is used to judge everthing, but US people don’t need to say things like ‘It’s just a flag.’….
I don’t wanna emphasize the hatred here; if you guys don’t really care about what we are arguing, please don’t make kibitzer’s comment when we really feel expropriated. I realize how severe the international situation we faced; in consquency, I agree with Yuting, who said remaining two versions for two countries/regions/territories(pick anyone you like). I think this is the acceptable statement we can endure.
The option originally was meant to distinguish the differences among coding, formats, language usages, so please go back to where it was and make it as the most common way people recognize it. The majority of using Taiwan option is Taiwan people, so please go back to the origin of open source concept, not only due to the political reasons. Thanks.
I am an American. I believe in democracy and capitalism. Red Hat exists because of the economic freedom created by such countries. Taiwan is a democratic nation that honors free trade and capitalism. China is a communist dictatorship. The fact that Red Hat does not support the freedoms that they take advantage of is a disgrace.
I think the Taiwanese people should call all local media to get them to pressure Red Hat into an official statement on why they don’t want to support the economic freedoms of others. I guess Red Hat does not think that Taiwan is as deserving of freedom as Red Hat is. Red Hat is a phony. They speak of the virtues of freedom then bow to communism.
We people in Taiwan respect the value of freedom and democracy, but China communists always dream to rule us.
We will never give up, even the whole wolrd down their knees to China communists.
Please support Taiwan! See http://www.gio.gov.tw/
Taiwanese: Since when Mr. Torvalds became a customer of Hinet?
You stupid Chinese people, you never learn!
He’s on vacation, I guess. I’m emailing to Eugenia BTW to moderate that comment down.
Ming: if you are really master at history, you will know it is NOT! Study first.
Taiwan was a country until the 70s. It was considered the official China, and the Communist government wasn’t considered the official government of mainland China. In 1976, mainland China took Taiwan’s seat, and ever since Taiwan never asked for independance, but rather rule over China. Lately, it seems they want independence, but it is too late. China for the past decade had block annually Taiwan’s attempts to be the 192 member of the UN.
Taiwan is a country! Taiwan is *NOT* part of China.
The history they taught you back in China was a lie.
Taiwan does acts like an country, but the UN doesn’t recognize its existance, neither do most of the world (especially the developed world). There is only 4-5 countries that officially recognize Taiwan, all of them recieve financial aid from Taiwan.
Taiwan, officially, is a renegrad province of China, hence 1976. Before that, it was a province of China – the recognize Chinese government was the Koumintang, and China was considered theirs.
Before that, it was a colony of Japan.
Taiwan is a country,in political science
She has her own land.
She has her own people,her nationality and nationlism.
She has her own government, a government voted by Taiwanese.
She has her own suprenacy, a complete suprenacy of Taiwan island.
In other words, the Papua (previously Irian Jaya) province of Indonesia should deserve a flag in Red Hat’s product too?
Those doesn’t make a nation.
If yes, Daulah Islamiah exist in SE Asia.
Kuting: Americans did pay it back, not eye-for-an-eye but went far beyond burning the flag of Afghanistan.
Their attacks on Afganistan was merely to catch Osama and al-Qaeda. And to tople the government that supported them. Afghans didn’t burn American flags, under Taliban rule, IIRC, it was banned. The Arabs did. America didn’t attack them.
jproctor: Taiwan is a democratic nation that honors free trade and capitalism. China is a communist dictatorship
In Shanghai and Nanjing, there is more free trade than in Taiwan. Plus, China employs something close to democracy, only it is a single party democracy. (it is ridden with corruption though).
Besides, RH doesn’t care about politics. They care about $$$, and China have the potential to provide more of that.
jproctor: They speak of the virtues of freedom then bow to communism.
Firstly, mainland China isn’t a communist state. It claims it is, but its ideology, under political science, is call Maoism. Secondly, RH supports communism in software (GPL).
—
Politically, I believe China should just let Taiwan go. The only thing they have to gain from such a reunification that is significant is the very fact of being the first dinasty to rule over ALL of China. They have no political, social, economic gain. Just egoistic gain.
On the other hand, I believe Taiwan should join China like HK SAR. They may loose democracy, but the economic benefits is much greater. It is hard to beat the fastest growing economic and military power, no?
Taiwan should instead push for a complete autonomy over Taiwan under China. They may get democracy, unlike HK and Macau, they may get freedom of speech and freedom of religion. They have nothing to loose in this area, except a chance of being a voice in the world (something they aren’t currently, BTW), and also loose being a military power (a week one now, in fact). What they should ask is complete automony, Taiwan representation in the Communist Party (so that policies regarding China and Taiwan may be fair), and no economic and political supresion.
Red Hat on the other hand should just follow what Microsoft and Apple does. For the Chinese, take out the Taiwanese flag. For the Taiwanese, restore it.
To rajan r: As for current political situation, there are around 25 countries recognize Republic of China. As for RedHat issue, thanks for your support. As for Taiwan’s future, I think the result should be based on Taiwan people’s free will; your opinion is appreciative, thanks but no thanks.
I think the thread is going to be off the topic. I just wonder when and how the RedHat would reply our arguments, since we report it as well as the ‘bug’ they claimed.
See,Red Had co. just takes “Free mask”…
In fact,Red Had can throw “FREE” away because money.
For Red Hat,Money is more important “FREE” .
I will not use RedHat dist.,and our company too.
My Lab. will change dist. to MDK next month.
What does be esteem?
Look anothe dist..
As Mahathir said a few days ago, the world has NO justice. China does not care about what Taiwan wants, and as a rapidly growing superpower, neither does the world.
Besides, if you look at the countries that recognize Taiwan, they depend on Taiwanese aid. If China gives better financial aid, they would backstab Taiwan almost immedieately.
Besides, I have Taiwanese friends, they all pretty much have the same opinion as me. I personally wish as China becomes more properous, more and more Taiwanese freedoms would enter the system. Like freedom of speeh. No religious persecution (Falun Gong, Muslims, Evangelical Christians, etc.). Stuff like that. I personally think it would happen, the Communist Party can’t stay in power for too long.
Now, if the Koumintang (or whatever party now ruling Taiwan 🙂 ruled China instead of the Communist Party, they would already be the world’s economic super power. Sad thing is that back then, the Koumintang failed to get the support of the peasants (the group of people that topple and led to the rise of all Chinese dynasties).
As to Master Chang, if you are gonna move products because of bad PR, you are more stupid than Red Hat itself. Choose products based on merits. if you think RH’s products is pale in comparison than Mdk, be my guest and move to Mdk 9.0
But if you are just moving just because you can’t get free CDs, booo!
Don’t regard our flag as a bug!
That’s the one and the only one thing we care.
For ReadHat
Our flag is a symbol for us, just like the red hat
logo is a symbol for you. No matter how they make
some other people unhappy, they are not bugs. Aren’t they?
You RedHat guys can do what you want to or what you have to. But you should apology for adjudging some people living in a freedom land a mistake.
For politics
Nobody know what we will be. It seems neither be a part of China nor be independant by now. I just know one thing, I am glad to hear my friends just celebrated their natinal birthday(1st, Oct), but I will never celebrate with them.
History? Yes, history never stand by our side. Fine, we do create our new history.
Many people are thinking we Taiwaners are over-reacting too much.
Well, I think you didn’t stand on our side and think properly.
It actually is a discrimination if the policy is generally unfair to some of the people.
What would you feel if that redhat took *your* flag out without telling you nothing before?
What would you feel if that redhat took *only* *your* flag out but all other country’s?
What would you feel about seeing this in the bug report:
XXX – get rid of Canada Flag in KDE (bug #XXXXX)
XXX – get rid of Franch Flag in KDE (bug #XXXXX)
XXX – get rid of German Flag in KDE (bug #XXXXX)
XXX – get rid of U.K. Flag in KDE (bug #XXXXX)
XXX – get rid of U.S. Flag in KDE (bug #XXXXX)
or with the country replaced of yours?
By the time you people *imaging* that your flag is a bug, we actually *having* our flag a bug.
Why should our flag be removed?
Why should our flag be “get rid” from KDE?
What would you feel if you did lots of construction on some software development but the devel team *don’t want* your name to be on the mailing-list?
What would you feel if you did lots of construction on some software development but the devel team *took your name out* from the mailing-list which was origionaly there?
The things we want to know is “who did this?” and “why this is to be done?”.
If the excuse is reasonable, we are glad to see no our flag there.
But if it actually is some kinda discrimination… I think we are going to take some action about that.
558 # remove taiwanese flag
559 %if %{redhatify}
560 rm -f $RPM_BUILD_ROOT%{_datadir}/locale/l10n/tw/flag.png
561 %endif
735 * Mon Aug 5 2002 Than Ngo [email protected] 3.0.2-7.2
736 – add patch file to fix kicker segfault (bug #69688)
737 – get rid of Taiwanese Flag in KDE (bug #70235)
Palatis: XXX – get rid of Canada Flag in KDE (bug #XXXXX)
XXX – get rid of Franch Flag in KDE (bug #XXXXX)
XXX – get rid of German Flag in KDE (bug #XXXXX)
XXX – get rid of U.K. Flag in KDE (bug #XXXXX)
XXX – get rid of U.S. Flag in KDE (bug #XXXXX)
But of course, all of the countries you have mentioned is…
1) many times bigger than Taiwan (geographically), except for the UK
2) many times bigger than Taiwan (economically, and market wise)
3) Are officially known to be independant states, not states whom their status is not yet decided (neither independent nor part of any country).
Officially, Taiwan is part of China. Perhaps to Red Hat, adding a flag for Taiwan makes as much sense as adding a flag for each province of China like Xianjang, Nanjing, Shanghai, etc.
So in the end, I could see some logic behind the decission, looking from RH’s point of view. Taiwan, logically, is not a state, yet not a province of any country, yet not a International governed land, or anything.
When RH creates a decission, is not one which is “Hey, Taiwan is a free country, not like PR China”. Do they care? NO!
If officially, Malaysia is a renegrad province of Indonesia, and the Malaysian flag is removed from KDE – guess what? I WOULDN’T CARE. As long the product is good, that is. (I’m Malaysian BTW)
It is good to see redhey does something that like, I’d like to see more, something like putting 5 stars on that bloody hat.
From RedHat Bugzilla:
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=75085
Red Hat as a global company respects the rights of all open source users. To avoid potential political inflammation, we feel it is best to not display any flags at this time.
3.0.4-1 has this fix.
Also they have replied with an e-mail:
Greetings–
In response to your recent email, Red Hat would like to assert the
following:
The exclusion of the Taiwanese flag from the KDE interface in Red Hat
Linux 8.0 was in no way a political statement from Red Hat. At the same
time, as a global company Red Hat must be sensitive to political
differences that impact the markets it serves. One of those markets is
Mainland China, where the inclusion of the Taiwanese flag would have
prevented the introduction of Red Hat Linux 8.0. Red Hat’s overall goal
is to broaden the global reach of open source technology and its benefits.
Sincerely,
Red Hat, Inc.
Customer Support
No. 5. No Discrimination Against Persons or Groups
The flag of Taiwan is a BUG !?
If this is not a discrimination, what could be?