After our discussion on the list, I propose two things. One is to include the 
following as a README.policy in the symbols/pc/ directory:

---
The files in this directory describe possible layouts for a given keyboard. 
The names of the files are referenced in the X server configuration and in 
user configuration tools. These files should be named as follows:

Files describing a keyboard from a national perspective must use the 2-letter 
ISO 3166-1-alpha-2 code element for the nation as the filename. (e.g. the 
file 'gb' contains the keymap for Great Britain.)

These codes can be found a the following address:

http://www.iso.ch/iso/en/prods-services/iso3166ma/02iso-3166-code-lists/list-en1.html

Files describing a keyboard from a language perspective must use the 3-letter 
ISO 639-2B bibliographic code for the language as the filename. (22 
languages, including Greek, have two 639-2 code elements, a bibliographic and 
a terminology code. The bibliographic code is "guaranteed" not to change.) 
(e.g. the file 'ben' contains the keymap for Bengali.)

These codes can be found a the following address:

http://www.loc.gov/standards/iso639-2/englangn.html

Keymaps that vary from the default keymap should be added to that file, not 
put into a separate file. The keymap will be referenced as 
filename(alt_keymap) (e.g. se(nodeadkeys) for Sweden). There are current;y 
files that use the underscore '_' key to separate different layouts. This 
usage is deprecated. The default layout for each keyboard must describe a 
keyboard based on the symbols printed on the keys. Secondary keymaps can 
describe differences that are preferred, but not necessarily printed on the 
keys (e.g. preferring that dead keys actually print the symbol printed on the 
key).

Keymaps that don't fit into this model should be given filenames that are 4 
letters or longer.

In the files, the description of the name[Group1] should be the name of the 
nation or language (as appropriate) in 7-bit English. For keymaps with 
filename of 4-letters or longer should have the description of the 
name[Group1] be a description of the keymap in 7-bit English.

The default layout for each keyboard must describe a keyboard based on the 
symbols printed on the keys. Secondary keymaps can describe differences that 
are preferred, but not necessarily printed on the keys (e.g. preferring that 
Caps Lock and Control are switched).
---

Secondly, I propose to make the following changed to the existing keymaps, 
always taking care to follow the above policy and to make sure that backwards 
compatability is preserved. Also, to minimize the changes needed to the 
current directory layout.

When moving a filename to a new name, the old file will still exist merely 
including the new filename. All keymaps referenced in it will still be usable 
with the old name.

In the National keymaps, do the following:

 - change the "name[Group1]=" from the name of the language in English to the 
name of the nation in English.
 - for files that have separate files for keyboard variations (e.g. cz_qwerty 
and pl2), move the variation into the original file and change the old 
variation file to include the variation from the original filename (so 
cz_qwerty will only consist of include "pc/cz(qwerty)")
 - move the 'yu' keymap to 'cs'

In the linguistic keymaps, change existing files to their 639-2B code.

 - move the Arabic language file from 'ar' to 'ara'
 - move the Inuktitut language file from 'iu' to 'iku'
 - move the Hindi language file from 'hi' file to 'hin'
 - move the Lao keymap from 'lo' to 'lao'
 - move the Greek keymap from 'el' to 'gre'
 - move the Tamil keymap from 'tml' to 'tam'

In the miscellaneous keymaps,

 - move the Latin America keymap from 'la' to 'latin_america'
 - include the contents of the 'en_US' keymap in the 'us' file, and change the 
en_US file to include pc/us(latin1)
 - Ask the folks what they prefer for the Francophone layout (fr-latin9)
 - move the gur file to gurmukhi, because it is a script (like Latin or 
Cyrillic), not a language
 - in the sapmi file, ask the Skole Linux folks what they would like to rename 
the Group from the 8-bit "S�megiella" to.
 - For the 'pc' file, ask this list what is a good solution.

If folks here agree that *some* standard is needed, and that this is a decent 
plan forward, I'll start making the patches to do this, though not all at 
once. I'll break it up into easier pieces.

Frank


National: 
al (Albania) am (Armenia) be (Belgium) bg (Bulgaria) br (Brazil) by 
(Belarus) cz cz_qwerty (Czech Republic) de (Germany) dk (Denmark) ee 
(Estonia) es (Spain) fi (Finland) fo (Faroe Islands) fr 
(France) gb (Britain) ge_la ge_ru (Georgia) hr (Croatia) ie (Ireland) il 
il_phonetic (Israel) ir (Iran) is (Iceland) it (Italy) lt 
(Lithuania) lv (Latvia) mk (Macedonia) ml (Malaysia) mm (Burma) mt mt_us 
(Malta) nl (The Netherlands) no (Norway) pl pl2 (Poland) pt (Portugal) ro 
(Romania) ru (Russia) se (Sweden) si (Slovenia) sk sk_qwerty (slovakia) sr 
(Serbia) th th_pat th_tis (Thailand) tj (Turkmenistan) tr (Turkish) ua 
(Ukraine) us (United States) uz (Uzbekistan) yu (Yugoslavia)

Linguistic:
ar (Arabic), ben (Bengali), el (Greek), guj (Gujarati), hi (Hindi), iu 
(Inuktitut), lo (Lao), kan (Kannada), ori (Oriya), sami, syr (Syriac), tel 
(Telugu), tml (tamil)

Miscellaneous:
dvorak, en_US, la (Latin America), latin, pc, fr-latin9 (Francophone), gur 
(Gurmukhi), sapmi (S�megiella), ogham (Ogham)


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