Swag... new choices?

[Paul Robinson]

> Long time BSD user (mostly FreeBSD and OpenBSD).
> 
> OpenBSD team has some great swag: posters and shirts.

Ahhh, but they have completely free use of their puffy fish mascot and a
bunch of talented guys producing original artwork, music, the whole lot.
We have more developers and fewer artists, and a mascot we don't really
own. That makes it difficult to produce a wide range of artwork. When
was the last time you saw Beastie in 2D in any position other than
standing facing to our left?
 
> Has FreeBSD mall considered new shirts? Even the same designs 
> on different
> colors.

Perhaps a competition of some sort? I think it also might be an idea to
get some distributors further afield than FreeBSD mall - I've had
genuinly AWFUL experiences with them, and a lot of people don't want to
deal with them. Plus, in Europe, there are plenty of distributors
prepared to handle this side of the Atlantic.

The real problem though is free use of the logo/mascot. To really open
up the market like OpenBSD has, you kind of have to consider... dare I
say it?... changing the mascot. If you want to produce lots of mass
produced stuff with loads of artwork and sell them, you can't use
beastie unless you've cleared every item with McKusick:

http://www.mckusick.com/beastie/mainpage/copyright.html

That's fine, and I understand his reasoning. It just works against what
you're suggesting unfortunately.
 
> Also some posters would be nice -- We hang them in our office. I could
> print stuff on a plotter but it wouldn't be the same as a 
> professionally
> printed poster.

And by far the cheapest thing to produce (and therefore buy) out of all
the merchandise oppurtunities. A bulk poster printer will produce
full-colour A1 or A2 prints for a remarkably low fee, you just need to
order a lot of them.

--
Paul Robinson