Comment 197 for bug 221112

(In reply to comment #69)
…
> > Regarding the voting, is there generic popular Linux-oriented site in
> > France? Like slashdot.org or smth...
>
> There is a popular Linux-oriented site in France (linuxfr.org) and the
> final ajustments of this layout were done after discussion on this site.
>
> I realise there is a vocal minority that does not like some of those choices

A site like linuxfr.org may well be a vocal minority in itself. Nothing proves that linuxfr.org is representative of ordinary users. And even on linuxfr.org I have seen posts saying "where is my CRTL-R gone?" or "my keyboard is broken since some new version of Ubuntu".
In a way, suppressing one of the customary CTRL keys is intrinsically a minority point of view.
[Furthermore, the French layout for the Belgian keyboard depends on the French layout for the French keyboard. I do not see why a discussion on linuxfr.org should decide that Belgians have no use of right CTRL.]

> but
> 1. the other alternatives used in the ancestors of this layout generated a
> lot more hate mail

I doubt having a right CTRL key ever generated hate mail. That hate mail was about other questions.

> 2. because I knew there was no choice everyone would like spacebar layout is
> modular (and I'm the person who modularized it as part of the creation of
> this layout). People can choose the previous behaviour if they want and a
> few other possibilities were added as part of the modularization

We are not here discussing space bar, but right CTRL. Is right CTRL modular? Is there an option easily accessible to the ordinary user to restore right CTRL?

> 3. so far no one proposed any better option appart from removing symbols
> which are necessary to write proper French (arguably proper French is not
> the same as C code). It's a lot easier to clamor for removal of the bits you
> do not use than to try to design a general-purpose solution without cutting
> corners

The clamor is not against proper French of for removal of anything. Furthermore, how could an ordinary user "try to design a solution"? The user wants a common PC keyboard with CTRL keys, without having to write the code himself. The clamor is: do what you can to allow writing proper French —and thank you for your trying to do it— but leave the right CTRL.
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If no agreement can be reached, would it be possible to have the old layout accessible, even under another name? I do not know how many variants are allowed, by design, or by freedesktop conventions. Of course a new variant would be useless if it didn’t appear in the choices offered to an ordinary user by the most popular GNU Linux distributions.