Comment 17 for bug 418939

For starters, Crimean Tatar isn't really related to Mongolian. Mongols in related territories got assimilated, and their language hasn't had a major influence on Turk(ic) languages: although some words from Mongolian have been adopted and are in use. Now to the issue at hand.

> To a large extent, this issue is connected to the entirely wrong approach of keylayouts in Linux (am a Mac OS user, and creator of several keylayouts for Romanian—several variants, Old Italic, Old Church Slavonic, Czech. So, I feel competent to speak about this issue (see http://www.unibuc.ro/ro/cd_sorpaliga_ro , the English page seems to be under revision). Linux distros deal with political entities, and then places keylayouts under countries / states, an entirely wrong view, even if, of course, covering a reality. But what happens with those situations when there is no state there? What about Old Church Slavonic, Old Italic / Etruscan, Gothic etc. etc. Shall we randomly put them under a certain pretext?

> And, very briefly: the long-standing improvised solution of keyboard layouts in Linux, so rigid and so impossible to modify (as in Mac OS, using either Alex Eulenberg’s site or John Brownies’s UKELELE) is the main reason why linux cannot be efficiently used in foreign language teaching and never in dealing with special situations like old languages like Old church Slavonic, Old Italic / Etruscan, Gothic etc. etc. because is a tantalizing cause to try to create your keylayouts in linux. This is, in fact, the essence of the discussion

I agree with these 2 quotes. I have expressed similar, if not the exact same, opinions in this regard. The issue is not with Crimean Tatar layouts, but with the design pushed by 1 or 2 people (without any discussion). The design is based on political entities, rather than linguistics, thus stirring unnecessary inter-ethnic conflicts. No other OS has such a politicized keyboard layout approach. The only reason it is still flying in Linux, is because there hasn't been any discussion about the design: the decisions have been made by 1 or 2 people without any open public discussion. Well, it is obvious that political entities have no place in software: so they have to be removed, leaving only linguistic considerations.

I personally do not accept the superiority of an opinion of 1 maintainer (who is in fact a subject of a country that has been torturing languages for centuries). If 1 such person is stonewalling a proper design for keyboard layouts, it would be totally OK from my viewpoint to do any of the following:
a. overrule such an opinion
b. provide patches for Ubuntu and see what the Ubuntu community thinks about it: if it goes through in Ubuntu, there's a chance other distros will pick a more logical approach as well (this would be OK initially, but in longer term would probably necessitate c.)
c. branch xkeyboard-config project into a new open source project that is free from political entities and considerations, and based solely on linguistics and informatics

The alternatives to fixing the real issue mentioned here, involving deleting Crimean Tatar layouts, would be an unacceptable bigorty from my viewpoint, and will only waste people's time. This sounds to me like fixing a symptom, instead of root cause: one could look up some tragic examples of these kinds of mistaken approaches from medical science.

Sorin, i would recommend resolving the design issues, which are also pertaining to examples that you mentioned, like Old church Slavonic, Old Italic / Etruscan, Gothic, etc. Once politics is removed from design, the matter will be solved entirely, in its root cause, and will take care of future other similar cases.

Regards.