The only xkb_symbols "us" that I see are in digital/us and
xfree68/ataritt.
But the map would be the same as the xkb_symbols "basic" in pc/us,
basically, the same as latin(basic) only not including the group 2 or 3 symbols (exclamdown, etc.). However, it would be in the latin file and included in the other us files.
Could you please differentiate between "levels" and "groups" in XKB terminology. All keymaps in pc/ should use *only* one group to facilitate multi-layout features of XKB in XFree 4.3.
But basicaly, this could be done simply without breaking compatibility. You just create a xkb_symbols("ascii") in pc/us file, and put "NoSymbol" or "any" on higher levels, and just include that from "basic". (Btw, "basic" in "pc/us" is practically "us", eg. just calling "setxkbmap -layout us" will set the "pc/us(basic)" map).
In this manner, all the keymaps which would need just the ASCII part, without other US parts, could include "pc/us(ascii)".
OK, so we can pick another name. My point is to preserve the (blurred)
difference between nations and languages. Nations determine keyboard
layouts, not languages (the French, Canadians, and Swiss all use different keyboards to type the French language - azerty, qwerty, and qwertz). But see more below.
I tend to disagree with this statement. There are a couple of language (a dozen at most) that are used in several countries in the world (like Spanish, French, Portuguese, German, English,...). For those languages, and for those countries, your proposal would be sane.
Alas, there are another 150+ countries with even more languages that don't belong into this category, and where the relation
language => country strongly holds.
So, maybe this would make sense for several keymaps, but it wouldn't for most of them, especially since one may want to use a *language* while in other country -- and many users (especially novices) will make mistake if they're located in Germany, and then choose "Germany" as their keymap (not knowing that they're actually setting a keyboard map because they're just honestly stating their country of location), even though they want to type in English.
So, I cannot see any advantage to the naming scheme you seem to be proposing, yet there are many disadvantages.
Actually, another problem, as I see it, is that countries tend to use several languages, and it's *more* common that the same layout be used in different countries for the same language, than the opposite (the example you give for French, and qwerty, qwertz and azerty).
So here we are. Do anyone on i18n have an opinion either way? I feel
that keyboard layouts are national, and for the countries like Switzerland, the specific changes could be selected by choosing a mapping of ch(fr) or cd(de).
Again, it's the minority of countries that have this kind of situation (and, at the same time, this kind of need), and I have expressed my doubts above.
This is kind of an odd request and has to do more with the keycodes
than the symbols. But, if all the files distributed with XFree86 used the new RLGO symbols, then the only problem would be for users who were doing customisation with xmodmap or who had their own xkb files that hadn't been sent to XF86 for inclusion. Or perhaps there's a way to preserve the compatability.
I am all for it -- I don't like calling that operating system of theirs a "win" (as in "victory"), so I'd agree on this change (even though that would break compatability for some of my keymaps I am distributing outside of XFree86 main distribution).
Still, I believe XF86 supports adding several different symbols that map to the same key code.
Cheers, Danilo
PS. I am probably a little biased, because I come from those "other 150 countries", but I hope I have made at least a couple of valid points. ;-)
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