Icon theme specification: Standardizing icon names

[Frans Englich]

On Wednesday 20 October 2004 19:34, Kenneth Wimer wrote:
> * Frans Englich <frans.englich at telia.com> [Oct 20. 2004 17:59]:
> > > On Tuesday 19 October 2004 08:25, Alexander Larsson wrote:
> > > It suffices to say:
> > >
> > > Gnome will never ship any flags, nor depend on any software or standard
> > > that mandates the existance of flags. The same goes for Red Hat.
> >
> > But you do ship browsers which allows the selection of character
> > encodings? As said, you don't have to ship the actual flag symbols, but
> > images that are blank, transparent or have some trivial symbol. The
> > specification wouldn't force you to have actual Taiwanese/whatever flags,
> > only to have images named flag-xx(or use the yet to be specified pseudo
> > icon mechanism). In either case, you won't show flags in your interfaces
> > -- wouldn't it be ok to have files on the hard disk named flag-xx, where
> > xx is per ISO 639?
>
> I think that the past has clearly shown that using flags can be a very
> tricky matter. Microsoft has regretted doing so on several occasions.
>
> As do dictators, flags tend to change over time. Without a carefull eye
> you are pissing people off from one day to the next without knowing.
>
> I have received *many* complaints that I, as American, intentionally put
> the American flag on top of a crystal icon I made for SUSE when actually
> I put the british flag on top and the marketing people made me change
> it.  Flags are very powerfull metaphors, in good and bad ways. I suggest
> staying away from them.

But what have I missed? Explain for me how having the name standardized would 
worsen these cultural/national problems.


Cheers,

		Frans