Bug 37242

I cannot put it any more formal than I already did in the rules. But you are welcome to suggest. Till then, it is WONTFIX.

Thanks for telling on other languages though - I will consider that information.

You confirmed what i said in the beginning of comment 0 by doing the same thing that you did in bug 19978. Apparently you are trying to discourage other people from expressing their thoughts, and to prevent an open discussion, in order to make arbitrary decisions. I hope, however, just as the artificial country-based listing of layouts in bug 19978 got fixed with logical language/locale-based approach in the end, that this issue will also eventually be resolved.

(In reply to comment #1)
> But you are
> welcome to suggest. Till then, it is WONTFIX.
I have suggested an approach based on what other OSs are doing, as opposed to arbitrary decision-making.
What you've been doing lately is this:
a. for some layouts you suffice with the number of speakers, no further questions asked.
b. for some layouts (even if they are for languages that share similar characteristics with languages of layouts in item a.) you do not suffice with the number of speakers, but require a guesstimate of the number of users. This is totally unacceptable for languages (or variants or orthographies) which have characteristics similar to those of languages from item a. By the way, just how silly this is becomes obvious from examples of languages with a large number of speakers, that have fewer Linux users than languages with a relatively very small number of speakers. Based on this non-"logic", you'd have to hide the layout(s) for a language with a large number of speakers, and show the layout(s) for a language with a relatively very small number of speakers. What is this project: a self-proclaimed language police? The criterion is clearly not a guesstimate of the number of users.
c. and some layouts you hide without any discussion based on an arbitrary decision.

Does that make any sense whatsoever?

(In reply to comment #0)
> Among the example above, Inari Sami is a language with the smallest number of
> speakers: 300. I can't not commend Windows for including it in the list for
> selection of keyboard layouts! Respect for human rights of which linguistic
> rights are a part especially shines in this case.

300 is clearly a very meaningful number (as an indication of maximal possible number of users of Inari Sami language, for which Windows provides a keyboard layout). However, based on any of the approaches a., b., or c.  above and the way in which you have employed them so far, Inari Sami language would be hidden from the UI on Linux based on any of the approaches, even though it's shown on Windows, which is a closed-source OS!

Does that make any sense whatsoever?

What you have done so far is you have hidden a layout for a language (Secwepemctsín) spoken by 5 and a half times that number (1650=300*5.5) from the UI without even any discussion, or explanation, or just a rationalization.

Does that make any sense whatsoever?

Inari Sami is clearly sufficient as an example of a non-arbitrary approach for what i referred to as category 1 layouts. And for layouts in category 2., it is also quite logical to ask, "If Windows shows a layout which has an upper limit of users of roughly 300 (and that is including everybody, even babies, pre-school children and the very elderly, which probably account for 25%), would it not make sense to apply the same threshold for alternative layouts even for languages with a large number of speakers?"

I'm seeing a discriminatory, and chauvinistic approach for some layouts, or at the very least an arbitrary approach for some other layouts described in this bug. IMHO, this is unacceptable, and i hope with time this issue is resolved the way it should be resolved by the Linux community in general.

> Apparently you are trying to discourage other people
> from expressing their thoughts, and to prevent an open discussion, in order to
> make arbitrary decisions.
I must admit, this is just related to you, personally. Because of the prehistory of our communications which are proved to be impossible.

> I have suggested an approach based on what other OSs are doing
That does not make sense. We do not know how the decisions are made in Microsoft or Apple, so simply following them is a nonsense.

Actually, I must thank you for a couple of ideas I will add to the rule #6. But the main thing remains - these rules cannot be formal, and the final decision is mine, just because I am "self-proclaimed" maintainer (I wonder if there was ever a maintainer "proclaimed" by others).

BTW, I have some good news for you - last I heard, KDE displays "extras" unconditionally and always. As I told you earlier, the word "hides" does not apply to xkeyboard-config, it is related to particular GUIs.

Put more details into the rules. Thanks for the food for thought.

For the record, the following is what the self-proclaimed dictator has "decreed" in "rule" 6:

<start_quote>
6. For the layouts/variants that are "exotic", it is recommended to use base.extras.xml.in instead of base.xml.in. The word "exotic" is used in statistical sense only.

There is no formal definition of "exotic", because in most cases it is not possible to prove the actual number of users. There are several "usual suspects" for the "exotic" section:

    The layouts for endangered/extinct languages/scripts. The statistics can be taken from http://www.ethnologue.com/. The potential candidates are languages with <100K speakers. If the number of speakers is <10K, the language most probably belongs to "extras"
    The languages that are used most frequently with layouts made for other languages. If most of the texts using the language L1 are typed using layouts made for L2 (more popular), the own layout for L1 may be considered as exotic, even if the language L1 itself is popular. That is the a possible scenario for national minorities using the languages with the alphabet similar to the alphabet used by the language of the larger nation in the same country.
    The exotic layouts for popular languages. If some relatively small group of people are using some variant suitable for their needs. Typical examples: variants for programmers, for typography, for particular group of sciences, for sacred texts etc. 

That's typical, but not the only possible scenarios for putting layout/variants into the "extras" section.

The maintainer of xkeyboard-config typically questions the popularity of newly submitted layouts/variants. If no conclusive proof of number of users is provided, the layout can be put into the extras section (the maintainer reserves that right).

Putting layout/variant into the extras section is just a representation of the fact that layout is not popular enough to be included into the main section. The GUI tools can use any approach to displaying (or not displaying) "extras" - this issue is out of scope of xkeyboard-config.

It is recommended to put "exotic" variants into the end of the corresponding symbols file - after the delimiter line:

// EXTRAS: 
<end_quote>

For starters, i have never seen a project maintainer who proclaimed himself/herself to be a "dictator" of the project, let alone proclaiming himself/herself to be a dictator of a project that affects linguistic (and thus human) rights of many ethnicities.

1. On April 13, 2011 you explicitly said that you wanted to save a few pixels in the scrollable list of keyboard layouts, which reveals the true intention of "base.extras.xml.in". And now you are trying to play with words.
Regardless of what KDE does, the most popular desktop environment for Linux, Gnome, currently doesn't show these so called "extra" layouts, and neither does Gnome released by the most popular Linux distro (Ubuntu and its Gnome derivative: Unity)). Actions speak louder than words: if you moved Secwepemctsin and Crimean Tatar (Dobruja Q) to "extras" after Gnome in general and Gnome on Ubuntu started showing these so called "extras" on the UI, you could say that your actions are not hiding these layouts. As of now, your actions are hiding these layouts from the UI for majority of Linux users, consistently with your previously stated intent.
2. Discriminating against languages saying, after seeing examples clearly proving how outrageous that is, that that discrimination "could" be reversed by Gnome or a distro doesn't change the fact that this project and you personally have discriminated against those languages or language variants by arbitrarily putting them in 2nd-class category.
3. As of now, your arbitrary, self-proclaimed, dictatorial rules mean that keyboard layout entries shown by Windows will not be shown on Linux (at least not on Gnome and its "derivatives" like Unity)! E.g.: Mohawk, Sami Inari, Sami Lule, Sami Skolt, Southern Sami, etc. I don't think i need to elaborate on just how dumb, chavinistic, and outrageous that is.
4. I've said this before: you can't reach your goals without hypocracy and discrimination. You are not following your own arbitrary, self-proclaimed, and dictatorial rules: out of currently mentioned roughly 6 language variants that fit the stated "criteria" for segregation (but which belong in the same category with layouts which are shown on Windows and Mac along with all the other layouts), you only segregated (and as of now for Gnome & Unity: hid) Crimean Tatar (Dobruja Q), which of course was the intention all along, and Secwepectsin, which of course was just to provide some kind of a cover for the former. Once again: hypocracy and discrimination.
5. Your arbitrary rules are stating discrimination in black and white:
you stated that if a language spoken by relatively small number of speakers has more Linux users than a language with relatively large number of speakers, you would still segregate (disappear) the language with larger number of Linux users by putting it in 2nd-class category, while leaving the other language shown on the UI, even though it has fewer users! You are contradicting yourself again and again.

From comment #2:
> I'm seeing a discriminatory, and chauvinistic approach for some layouts, or at
> the very least an arbitrary approach for some other layouts described in this
> bug. IMHO, this is unacceptable, and i hope with time this issue is resolved
> the way it should be resolved by the Linux community in general.

(In reply to comment #6)
> For starters, i have never seen a project maintainer who proclaimed
> himself/herself to be a "dictator" of the project, 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benevolent_Dictator_For_Life

(In reply to comment #7)
To clarify, BDFL is perhaps tangent, but in the end irrelevant here: the term was never meant to be used and have never been used when talking about people's linguistic (and thus human) rights. Deciding on technical implementation details of a programming language, or an application framework is not the same as deciding on putting languages, language variants, or their keyboard layouts in 2nd-class category and/or disappearing them from the UI (e.g., even the latest Ubuntu 11.10 alpha 1 doesn't show any of the so called "extra" keyboard layouts).

In case it wasn't clear: i'm focusing on linguistic (and thus human) rights here, not open source philosophy in general (although making "rules" that lead to keyboard layouts shown on Windows being segregated and as of now to them not being shown for most Linux users is, IMHO, definitely against the open source philosophy).