The VideoLAN Forums

Hi! I'm a VLC user from the mainland of China. Just now when I browsed
the website of VLC, I found that on the page of downloading VLC, "taiwan" is in the same list of other countries. For example,the page:"http://www.videolan.org/vlc/download-windows.html".
As a Chinese, I must declare that "taiwan" is not a name of a country,
it's just a province of China. So you should change "taiwan" to "TaiWan
of China". Our Chinese will continue to focus on this problem. So please
correct this problem as soon as possible!!!

We are sorry, but the people who provide the mirror have given us the "Taiwan" name for the country. Morover, according to ICANN and IANA the tw TLD is accorded to Taiwan.

We don't want to enter this political problem, and this is not our issue. We are just repeating the name that the mirror guy gave us.

Would "Republic of China" be better ?

Dear website administrators, if you don't intend to hurt the majority of our Chinese, please change your web pages.

I think "Taiwan of China" should be better.
Or to some extent "China Taipei" is also acceptable!
But it has to be emphasized that "taiwan" is unacceptable and shouldn't be in the same list of other countries!

Besides, I have to mention that "the national flag of taiwan" must not appear in the web page of downloading VLC. "The national flag of taiwan"
must not be in the same list of the national flags of other countries.
Dear website administrators, I'm sure that you know the national flag of China is not the one appearing on the webpage now.

Ok.
Please explain you a bit more.

There is no list of countries. There is a list, in the download sections, of the mirrors.
One of the mirror is provided by Providence University, which claims to be part of the "Taiwan" country and gave us a flag with it. This is not our choice.

If you want to see China listed there, with a People's Republic of China flag there, provide a mirror that claims to be part of China. We would be so pleased to have it.

Maybe I don't understand what the real problem is, so explain, and give us some screenshots and images of what you think/want.

Dear administrator, I think you're a Frenchman, so you may not understand the feeling of our Chinese.

The problem is :
In the "Location" field, except "taiwan", all the others are names of countries. What is worse, "the national flag of taiwan" appears on the web page. If you are really a Frenchman, I'm sure you will never allow a province of France to put "its own national flag" on a web page.

Indeed, you may say it is the Providence University that provided the "national flag". But can a province have a "national flag"?

Dear administrator, I don't oppose your setting a mirror in Taiwan province. Maybe there is some misunderstanding between us.

If you really feel difficult to deal with this problem, I propose you to leave the "national flag field" of "taiwan" blank at least. Of course, you can also do some other suitable changes on the webpage to avoid this political problem. Then at least the majority of our Chinese will feel a little better.

Dear administrator, everyone loves his motherland, including you. So I really don't bother you deliberately.

Dear administrator, I'm a college student of China. When I told this problem to some other students, they were all very angry. We will continue to focus on this problem.
If this problem cannot be solved, I have to call on more and more college students to focus on this problem through the BBS of all the universities of China.

Again, I'm a Chinese, you're a Frenchman, you may not understand the feeling of our Chinese.

Again, I don't oppose your setting a mirror in Taiwan province. Maybe there is some misunderstanding between us.

Again, everyone loves his motherland, including you. So you're really expected to do some changes on the webpage to avoid this political problem.

Many college students of China, including me, are VLC lover. We are all concerned about this problem. We all believe you'll make the right choice.
Again, we all believe you'll make the right choice.

I'm a VLC lover. So at last best regards for VLC.[/b]

OK. I see the problem now.
We are going to discuss it with other people of the project to see how we can deal with the issue.

Just as a question, Sourceforge.net has also a mirror in "Tainan, Taiwan" for all OpenSource Project. Do you have also an issue with them ?

Dear administrator, I think you're a Frenchman, so you may not understand the feeling of our Chinese.

I say VideoLAN doesn't have to submit to imperialistic requests. If you want to have a political argument, keep that argument outside the VideoLAN forums.

The Republic of China (Taiwan) was created in 1912. Your own country, the People's Republic of China (China), was created in 1949. And the PRC has never controlled the RoC, so until your "motherland" (which is actually technically younger than Taiwan) has any control over that area, let it call itself a country, let the people who live there have their flag, and let the VideoLAN website display it.

Dear administrator, thanks for your reply. We are all waiting for your immediate and right actions.
Besides, you have mentioned the “Sourceforge.net”. Firstly, thank you for telling me the problem. And if this problem really exists, I think I will call on more people to focus on it. Thank you.

Dear Sam Hocevar, I’m not interested in political argument really. But as a Chinese, I have the obligation to maintain the unification of our motherland, in which “taiwan” is included. I guess you don’t know the history of China thoroughly. The history of China is not as simple as you said. Now most governments, including your government I think, have declared that “taiwan” is only one part of China, China has only one national flag (not the one appearing on the web page now). So please don’t say what will hurt our Chinese.

Finally, I’m sorry to talk about political problems here. I'm sorry.
Let us continue to support VLC!

Dear administrator, thanks for your reply. We are all waiting for your immediate and right actions.

I am sorry to say this is not immediate, because this is a real issue and the team has to discuss it. We are addressing it.

Dear Sam Hocevar, II’m not interested in political argument really. But as a Chinese, I have the obligation to maintain the unification of our motherland, in which “taiwann” is included. I guess you donn’t know the history of China thoroughly. The history of China is not as simple as you said. Now most governments, including your government I think, have declared that “taiwann” is only one part of China, China has only one national flag (not the one appearing on the web page now). So please donn’t say what will hurt our Chinese.

Dear llzzyynjupt, please do not use the rest of the world as a lever to enforce controversial political views. At least 20 countries acknowledge Taiwan as being a country, and so do the WTO and a few other organisations. Please come back when the RoC and the PRC have settled the matter, not when the rest of the world has.

Dear administrator, we Chinese are all waiting for your actions!

frankly speaking, making remarks like that and then asking the admins to remove the flag etc is not going to work. I understand your sentiments that you believe Taiwan is a province of China etc... However, the mirror given to them is located in Taiwan. I see no mirror from mainland China.

Having said that, i see no point in raising the issue further. This is a political Issue, and there is no room for politics on this server. The purpose of videolan is to create a player that basically kicks ass. We are not here to discuss whether Taiwan should be called a country or if it is a part of China. There are lots of other places where you can do that.

There will always be a difference in opinion. Not everyone will agree to what you think. And you will not always agree to what other people think. So please, leave the politics out of this server.

llzzyynjupt,

@$im is entierly right. We, as part of the VideoLAN project, are not involved in international politics.

(If you want to keep arguing about something that is insignifiant, consider the fact that we never mentioned that Taiwan is a country's name. It is only a "Location" on the downloads page.)

On a personal point of view, i consider Taiwan to be an independant country (in regards to mainland China). But that is of no importance here.

If that doesn't please you ... too bad. I consider this topic closed.

Best Regards,

This is not the place to solve or discuss the political status of Taiwan, Tibet, Lebanon, or any other break away republic, province, state etc... We all know that the political status of the world will not allow for all to be in agreement as to status of a given entity. The people providing the mirror should be contacted regarding this issue and if correction is indicated, they should make it. However, I think the original poster is trying to use his perceived strength to bully the hard working people of VLC to make a statement because he can not possibly do so to Taiwan. Surely this is not the only website in the world listing Taiwan as a country, Poster, move on to someone else.

I am sorry to say this is not immediate, because this is a real issue and the team has to discuss it. We are addressing it.

Dear administrator, we Chinese are all waiting for your actions!

It don't like the way you are speaking. If I say wait, just wait.

The team considers that it should not care about politics.

Topic is closed.