Salon: Flag of Inconvenience

[ Thanks to Doug Bostrom for this link. ]

"On Oct. 2, Chang Chung-Yen, a Taiwanese Linux enthusiast, was startled to find that his country had been erased. While fiddling around with the desktop interface included with Red Hat Linux 8.0, he discovered that no matter what he tried, he couldn't get Taiwan's flag to show up when he configured the system for his country and language.

"The KDE desktop included with Red Hat has excellent tools for adapting the operating system for different languages, and Chang was well familiar with them. A programmer who works for a voice-over-IP company in Taiwan, Chang is a member of the Chinese Linux Extension project, which provides a suite of Chinese add-ons to GNU-Linux operating systems. He has also volunteered on a team that works specifically on adapting KDE for Chinese use.

"He knew that when he picked out his country and language, a window should pop up that would include a small image of Taiwan's flag next to the country's name. And even though all the other countries in the window had their flags readily apparent, when he saw that Taiwan's was missing, he first thought he must have made a mistake. Maybe he'd forgotten to install some necessary piece of the operating system..."

Complete Story

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• ComputerWorld: Linux Makers in China Allegedly Violating Terms(Jul 03, 2001)
• ITDirector.com: Linux Winning The War of Perception(Jun 15, 2001)