Icon theme specification: Standardizing icon names

[Kenneth Wimer]

* Frans Englich <frans.englich at telia.com> [Oct 20. 2004 21:46]:
> 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.

One case that I read was that Microsoft employees were arrested in China
because some program (encarta?) mentioned Taiwan being a seperate
country, etc. There is some website about this stuff but of course I
cannot find it now...still looking.

Bye,
Kenneth

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