Subject: Re: Two Macedonias - msg#00223

Hi all,

Christian Perrier writes :
> Quoting Anton Zinoviev (anton@xxxxxxxxxx):
> > On Sat, Sep 25, 2004 at 02:47:51PM +0200, Christian Perrier wrote:
> > >
> > > "Macedonian Republic" (the latter is better for sorting issues).
> >
> > Please don't use "Macedonian Republic", but "Macedonia, Republic of"
>
> OK, point taken.
> Remember, folks that this decision pertains to the iso-codes package
> maintainer. Summarizing the recent discussion and sending the final
> agreement should be made to 272828@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

and then on debian-boot (not cc'ed to this thread) i read,
also by Christian Perrier :

> Alastair is in the process of modifying iso-codes and change the name
> of "Macedonia". So, we'de better wait for the lastminute in order to
> keep a change of having countrychooser use the new country names.

This is overly nonchalant, in my opinion.

In the first place, there is an important distiction between
"Republic of Macedonia" and "Republic Macedonia" :

The former means that this is the (possibly even a) Republic
of a further unspecified but not identical entity "Macedonia".
Associating this concept with this country
is exactly what the governments of
Republic Macedonia, Greece, Bulgaria and Albania
are trying to prevent,
in order to prevent any possible hostilities
within or between their countrys,
that could result in thousands of people getting _shot dead_ .
This same connotation is present in "Macedonian Republic",
but perhaps a bit less overtly so.

The latter means that the inhabitants of this territory
have decided to join forces, for their mutual profit,
in the form of a Republic,
and would like to be called "Macedonia"
('would like to' because this name is brandnew
in the sense that it only exists on this debian list).

As you understand, it is my strong feeling that the former
is far more preferable than the latter.

In my opinion,
nonchalantly discarding the concern that people may get shot dead
in favor of "better for sorting issues [in the installer list]",
constitutes criminal negligence.

In the second place,
as i mentioned in my previous email,
we should hear the opinions of at least some people of the countrys involved
prior to making any decision on this matter.

For the Greek input to this,
Konstantinos has unfortunately been harassed away from this discussion
by his fellow countrymen,
and we have received a message from George Papamichelakis
asking us to not drag l10n-hellas (which i had CC'ed) into this.

George,
i apologize for having bothered you
with this controversial and off-topic issue.
i am, as i will note furtheron, practically flying blind
and have tried only to do the best i could.
i'm sorry.

For the input of the people of Republic Macedonia,
the obvious candidate would be the ones that started this ;
as Christian Perrier has told us, they "feel very strongly about this".
Yet all we hear from them is this message of Christian Perrier :
> By chance, this solution is appearing as the name "Republic of
> Macedonia" seems acceptable to the people who raised this issue : the
> Macedonian localisation group.
So the only thing we really hear from this "Macedonian localisation group"
is the bugreport (by Ivan Stojmirov <stojmir@xxxxxxxxxxxx>)
in which he writes :
> <snip> since everyone usually calls Macedonia -- Macedonia,
> the change to the common name won't be a big issue.
This is an absurd lie,
as i hope you agree with me after having read the concerns i stated above,
and is filed by a person, not by or on behalf of a group
(at least there is no mention of any group in the text of this message).

Does this group really exist, Christian ?
Or did you just make it up ?

Whether this group does not exist,
or is represented by an individual that only (and falsely) states that
"[it ] won't be a big issue",
it certainly does not give us a reliable bearing for a decision.
(which rather reminds me of
what Christian Perrier said to Alastair McKinstry on -boot :
"if you could just change it in iso-codes, it would be allright" ;
which was what caused me to continue from there on -project.)

The only indirect reports of attitudes of Greek and Republic Macedonian
people toward this matter are completely negative :
They absolutely dont want to become involved in even discussing it.

So we're flying completely blind here,
only acting on the impetus of one criminally negligent maintainer,
who tries to avoid public discussion
by simply telling Alastair that "it'll be allright",
and rushes to get the matter changed in a way that suits him
without waiting for this thread that i brought on -project
to actually finish,
and is setting Debian off on a course that may result in
people getting shot dead,
and Debian getting blamed for having part in that.

I have flewn blind before, (no sight, just intruments..),
and i have confidence in my ability to navigate under such conditions.
In fact, i feel confident in stating that
in my opinion "Republic Macedonia" is the best available choice.
I might even be willing to risk my life on this.
But i am absolutely unwilling to risk the lives of the whole populations
of Republic Macedonia and Greece on such a meager basis.

Furthermore, i can not decide this issue on my own,
and i have a lot less confidence in
the ability of some other people involved in this thread
to take correct decisions despite having no valid view on the matter
than i have in my own.

Therefore i ask you
to agree that consensus has been reached
that we must absolutely keep our hands off this,
and therefore must revert back to using fyrom.

And i ask you Martin, as Debian Project Leader,
and therefore directly responsible for decisions made by Debian,
to make sure that Debian keeps its hands off this,
whether consensus is reached or not.
For the sake of the people in the countrys mentioned,
For the sake of the Debian Project,
For the sake of not being personally held responsible for
criminal negligence,
obstructing and sabotaging the foreign politics of your country,
trying to destabilize a friendly nation and NATO partner,
crimes against humanity,
and even, very remotely possible (as i will presently discuss),
leading an organization of international terrorism.
And out of respect for
the capabilities of the leaders of the countrys involved
to handle their own affairs themselves.

_Keep_ _your_ _hands_ _off_ _this_ !

The only reason i'm not shouting is that your mailfilter might reject it.


How the Debian project feels about Christian Perrier is not my problem.


I would like to leave the subject now this has been said,
but i can not,
for i am still flying blind, and i have an image on my radar.
It looks serious, and therefore i feel i have to tell you about it.
But i have absolutely no way to tell whether this is real,
or a ghost image produced by my instruments,
or a complete misinterpretation by me of the extremely vague data
and unverifiable intuitions that are all i have to go on.
Do not let this be your guide in any important decision.
These pure speculations have been marked by a '#'
on the beginning of the line.
It is this :
# A certain debian developer, whose name i will not name here,
# is an agent or marionet of
# a country that engages in international terrorism,
# whose name i will not name,
# but is the same one that i suspect of
# having successfully provoked civil war in Liberia and Sierra Leone.
# In order to increase the possibilitys for this country to
# gain more influence in the former Yugoslav region,
# it desires to destabilize the countrys of that area.
# That is ofcourse a very blamable undertaking,
# and as they do not want to get blamed for it,
# they set out to produce the desired effect as a series of
# small steps that are each not very blamable in themselves,
# trying to get each of these steps done by an
# overly credulous but completely innocent person
# (known as a 'fall-guy').
# Their strategy for Republic Macedonia is
# to try to associate the country's name with any concept that
# is not limited to the borders of that country,
# so that they may precede from there onto
# convincing dissatisfied people in the country that
# they should struggle and their struggle should involve other countrys.
# As they are not dealing with overly credulous politicians in this matter,
# they try to get a wrong name established anywhere else,
# so that they may induce someone to
# innocently present that as a 'fait accompli'.
# Fall guys in this case would include :
# Skopje Linux User Group
# Ivan Stojmirov
# Alastair McKinstry
# Martin Michlmayr

I expect that you agree that such scenario would be
serious enough to be worth considering in this specific case.

However, the true relevance for Debian lies in the question
"Is Debian sufficiently aware of the possibility that
it might be employed as a vehicle for international terrorism
to have a reasonable amount of resistance against it ?".
This is why i present you and the project with such scenario,
so that you and future projectleaders will take it into account.
(i hope that projectleaders keep some form of log
that they pass on to their successors).
We can not be expected to know everything,
and there is no reason why our resistance would be considered
less than that of similar organizations ;
however, as the size of the project grows,
so must the scope of it's management.


To wrap this business up there remains one other thing to do,
namely handling the issue that the fyrom identifier
is said by some to be insulting to some Debian users.
The reasons we need to handle it are that
the topic has been discussed in depth, so we can not claim ignorance,
and the insult can be avoided by us.
The insult can be avoided by us by adding to the installer manual
a notice saying something like :
"Debian wishes to assure all it's users that
the use of FYROM as identifier is not intended as an insult to anybody,
but used solely because we have no other choice."

If Debian decides to not have that notice,
it will probably fare equally well,
but why settle for 'probably'.


Projectleader, please note that i will inform your government about
the crimes that you are on the verge of becoming responsable for,
if this should turn out to be necessary.


I hope that settles matters for this thread.
However, until now, i have, with every message i sent on this thread,
thought that i presented the only complete, fundamental,
and God-given truth ;
For every message, i have had to later review my contribution
as containing elements that were stupid, jerky, or completely wrong.
This would not have been possible without the involvement
of all who have contributed to this thread.
I thank you all.


Make Love, not war.

Siward

----------------------------------------

"I saw him aiming a canon at my friends,
so i turned it around 180 degrees and fired it."
--Immelmann


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