Re: [PATCH] localedata: en_NL: new English in the Netherlands locale [BZ #14085]

[Florian Weimer <fw@deneb.enyo.de>]

> I understand you are playing the devils advocate. Thanks for
> that. Suppose that for all territories English is added, that will, at
> a maximum, double the number of locales, only once.
>
> That is manageable. Computers nowadays can handle that amount with
> ease.

The current dominant criticism of glibc is related to installation
size (search for Docker and Alpine Linux if you aren't aware).  As
always, the situation is more complex than some of the reports
suggest, but adding a few dozen megabytes to the installation is
probably not such a good idea.

> At the moment, remixing LC sections is not supported by any of the
> main GNU/Linux installers or by command line configuration tools or by
> configuration tools for GNOME, KDE, etc.

Not quite true.  It was supported in KDE; it had a separate selector
for LC_MESSAGES at least.  The KDE people removed it at one point
because there was no need.  If they have not added it back yet, I
think this shows this feature is not actually needed, and neither are
English locale variants.

I don't want glibc to be the place where contested decisions by
desktop environments are worked around.  If the people actually
working on end user interfaces determine that mixed locale settings
are not needed, who are we to second-guess them?  They have many more
interactions with such users than we do.

> As long as no progress is made in usability in installers and
> configuration tools, I would see fit that en_NL is added. It can
> always be removed if more elegant alternatives become available.

If the locale has actual users, we can't remove it that easily.