Comment 10 for bug 272826

On Wed, 24 Sep 2008 13:34:30 +0530
Vid.A <email address hidden> wrote:
[deletia]

OH FOR GODS SAKE. I hadn't even thought of this. Of course, if someone
native Spanish speaker considers this a problem, then the issue is
different altogether, but I hadn't even thought it is somehow not
gender-neutral. I would have thought this is some kind of a joke or a
jest to make the female contributors to look like Medusas from the
Greek mythology[1], but I guess this should be taken seriously... I
think?

For me - and yes, this is my own, puny, wholly personal opinion and
represents nobody else than me, myself and I - Ubuntero is
gender-neutral. Changing it now, as it has already established its
meaning and is used fairly regularly, would be foolish. We'd have to
coin up a new word, which may or may not be accepted by the whole
community. The reasons for the change should be then explained to the
whole community, and the reason for the change would be... this
bug report? I daresay Ubuntu has been widely adopted in Latin America
and there has been *no* public discussion about the subject on the
public mailing lists or the Ubuntu Women IRC channel until now.

I'm afraid the public outcry from changing Ubuntero to "gender-neutral"
would by far surpass the loudness of the wails of the people annoyed by
the current term. There might also be mentioned something about
"thin-skinned women" who "make mountain out of a molehill"...

HOWEVER. If this had been thought four years ago, then yes, it would be
better to have something gender-neutral. Unfortunately the current
scientific research hasn't given us the ways for time travel.

[1]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medusa

Miia "Myrtti" Ranta

disclaimer: written by a woman with not enough caffeine in her
bloodstream, may contain typos, odd rambling and traces of Finnish
language.

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