On Tue, May 19, 2009 at 10:05 AM, Mathieu Bridon (bochecha)
<bochecha(a)fedoraproject.org> wrote:
Anyway, sticking to the official internation standard list of
countries maintained by UN (if such a list exists) seems much more
neutral to me.
A list of current countries doesn't solve the problem. Let's take for
example Freeciv, which was cited earlier as having flags as a core
part of the experience (I'd disagree, but anyways). Do we allow
historical flags or not? I can think of more than one past historical
leader and flag that are likely to be controversial, and definitely
one which is banned in a perfectly democractic country (this is what
Seth was hinting at earlier).
By abandoning flags alltogether, we actually make a decision: we
choose to side with those who don't agree with the UN.
Every decision has tradeoffs and ramifications. The point is, are
flags/symbols a core part of the value Fedora is delivering in most of
these cases? No.
Note that we aren't taking away anyone's freedom here - anyone is free
to create a localized spin which includes some flags or other changes
as they desire.