Re: [gentoo-project] Call for agenda items -- Council meeting 2012-03-13

[Ulrich Mueller]

>>>>> On Thu, 1 Mar 2012, Fabian Groffen wrote:

> I think that discussion can be split into
> 1) if a UTF-8 profile should be set as default, and
> 2) what UTF-8 profile that would be

> Just to give some hints/ideas here:

> For 1), for many people it's a waste, and it's not POSIX (== C
> IIRC), so should we really do that.  Also, how about this changing
> default for existing systems.  Why not update the docs to strongly
> suggest to set an UTF-8 profile instead.

We shouldn't set LANG to anything else than POSIX (or C), otherwise
there will be undesired side effects affecting for example number
formatting, collating sequence, units of measurement, and paper size.

If we change the default, we should use a less intrusive approach and
change LC_CTYPE only, which is the relevant variable that controls the
character encoding functions.

> Then, 2) is almost moot.  If you would default to an UTF-8 profile,
> I think the only sensical option is en_US.UTF-8 (not en_GB).
> However, if you only strongly suggest in the installation docs, you
> can get away from this problem, since the user has to choose his/her
> preference in that case anyway.  Just a note that leaving
> en_US.UTF-8 always in is a good idea would suffice, I guess.

I agree that en_*.UTF-8 is a reasonable setting. I think for LC_CTYPE
it doesn't even matter if it's en_US or en_GB.

Ulrich