Renaming Saigon to TP Ho Chi Minh

Progfou jean-christophe.andre at auf.org
Fri Mar 21 03:25:00 UTC 2008


Olson, Arthur David (NIH/NCI) [E] <olsona <at> dc37a.nci.nih.gov> writes:
> I see at...
> 	http://www.usembassy.gov
> ...that the last likely holdout is prepared to refer to Vietnam's
> most populous city as "Ho Chi Minh City."

[Putting my introduction bellow since this posting system complains about
 top posting when it really isn't...]

    Hi there,

I'm answering to this from Debian/Ubuntu bug reports links to your site.

I'm sorry to have to tell this since it will probably be read as an agressive
answer, but... Could we please stop thinking from the U.S.A. point of view only?

Please see this comment from Vietnamese people:
  https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/tzdata/+bug/121540/comments/10

And this one from myself (living in Vietnam since 1999):
  https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/tzdata/+bug/121540/comments/15

> We'd normally use "Ho Chi Minh City" (English version) rather than
> "Thành phố Hồ Chí Minh" (native version) as the (basis for the) zone name.

I agree on this: English is the source language.
Translations are done when needed through other well defined mecanisms.

> We'd normally try to limit the name to at most 14 characters.

Is there a specific reason for this? Or any official rule (POSIX?) ?
Because I can see other zone names as long as 30 caracters.
Eg: America/North_Dakota/New_Salem

> Ho_Chi_Minh_City weighs in at 16. Ho_Chi_Minh, at eleven characters,
> would be within the normal limit. (Using just the name of the person
> after whom the city is named is something to which I'm accustomed,
> living as I do just a mile from Washington.)

Ok. Thanks for considering this change, but...

The real change to do is to move to "Hanoi" instead!
The "most populous" rule is totally arbitrary and a moving target.
As Mr Vũ Đỗ Quỳnh said, Hanoi will soon become the new result from this rule!

Anyway, I propose a better rule specifically for simple case like a country
being in only one timezone: just use the name of the Capital City.

Best regards, J.C.




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