Insensitive computer programmers with little knowledge of geography have cost the giant Microsoft company hundreds of millions of dollars in lost business and led hapless company employees to be arrested by offended governments.
The article talks about Microsoft, but it is a general issue that has also been faced by open source groups.
Perhaps the best known, and one of the most expensive, errors was a colour-coded world map showing time zones, which showed the disputed Jammu-Kashmir region as not being in India - an offence under Indian law. The mistake led to the whole of the Windows 95 operating system being banned in the country, losing large sales. For its replacement, Microsoft, Office 97, Microsoft removed the colour coding and sold 100,000 copies in India.
Microsoft naturally takes the posistion that which ever side offers more sales gets it's way. But it is actually a complex and delicate issue. And I know several open source groups have had problems when groups have donated language text and graphics that clearly take one side or the other. Do you include Taiwan as a country or not? Which side of the fence do you put Kashmir on?
Honestly, I would recommend rewording things to avoid the issue when possible in a software project. Don't talk about 'country' versions when 'regional' version will suffice. After that, it is a personal decision.
There is also the issue of how do cover events that actually happend but are considered unpaltiable or unmentionable now. Such as historical cases of inter-religious violence and mass muders. My posistion on this is more clear cut, if something actually happened then it's a mistake to cover it up or leave it out if it amounts to a lie of omission.
Jay