New FreeBSD logo

[Ted Mittelstaedt]

>-----Original Message-----
>From: Chad Leigh -- Shire.Net LLC [mailto:chad at shire.net]
>Sent: Tuesday, May 16, 2006 11:22 PM
>To: Ted Mittelstaedt
>Cc: Henry Lenzi; questions at freebsd.org
>Subject: Re: New FreeBSD logo
>
>
>
>On May 16, 2006, at 11:15 PM, Ted Mittelstaedt wrote:
>
>>
>>
>>> -----Original Message-----
>>> From: owner-freebsd-questions at freebsd.org
>>> [mailto:owner-freebsd-questions at freebsd.org]On Behalf Of Chad
>>> Leigh -- Shire.Net LLC
>>> Sent: Monday, May 15, 2006 11:08 AM
>>> To: Henry Lenzi
>>> Cc: questions at freebsd.org; Ted Mittelstaedt
>>> Subject: Re: New FreeBSD logo
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On May 15, 2006, at 11:57 AM, Henry Lenzi wrote:
>>>
>>>>> It was, I am sorry to say.  The core developer that pushed for all
>>>>> this said he was tired of when presenting FreeBSD to have to field
>>>>> a bunch of questions by people hung up over the devil image, it
>>>>> distracted from the presentation of the operating system's
>>>>> features.
>>>>>
>>>>> Ted
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>> You're kidding, right? Say you're kidding.
>>>
>>> Ted says lots of things.
>>>
>>
>> In this case though, I am not "just saying a lot of things"
>>
>> See the following:
>>
>> http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-advocacy/2005-February/
>> 001592.
>> html
>>
>> "...Unfortunately, the cute FreeBSD daemon is sometimes treated with
>> misunderstanding in the religious and cultural context. That's why The
>> FreeBSD Project is announcing a public competition for the new
>> logo ..."
>
>That was written by "Ricardo Alves dos Reis" who as far as I can tell
>[1] does not hold any official capacity at the FreeBSD Foundation or
>in the groups of people (committers etc) who had/have a say.  In
>other words, it was one outsider's personal opinion.  It in now way
>says anything about the real reasons for the whole thing.
>

Chad, since your going to be bullheaded (espically considering you
participated in all of these threads) here's some more, from
folks that I think satisfy your requirements for official capacity.
These
are from the threads that are still present in the archives, there is
one thread titled "please don't change Beastie to another crap logo such
as NetBSD" that had a lot of more goodies in it, but I've been unable to
find it.  (maybe it got stripped out from the archives, who knows?):

http://docs.freebsd.org/cgi/getmsg.cgi?fetch=2773426+0+archive/2005/freeb
sd-questions/20050213.freebsd-questions

"...The leaked document in its
initial form mentioned *replacing* the FreeBSD daemon.  No mention of
cleaning it up was made.  It even included a bunch of guidelines for
contest entries, including:
	* The logo must not exploit or offend a person's sex, race,
	  religion,..."


http://docs.freebsd.org/cgi/getmsg.cgi?fetch=128386+0+archive/2005/freebs
d-advocacy/20050213.freebsd-advocacy

"...Yeah, the announcement was prematurely leaked, and was clearly not
ready
for the world to see yet......you'll notice that
most of the BSD-related organizations have at some point opted for a
non-daemon logo..."

http://docs.freebsd.org/cgi/getmsg.cgi?fetch=3155618+0+archive/2005/freeb
sd-questions/20050213.freebsd-questions

"... I have done maybe a dozen presentations
for FreeBSD to public groups in that time... I,
for one, am damn tired of explaining some stupid Unix inside-joke
to people, at the same time that I'm trying to convince those same
people that FreeBSD is a professional, grown-up operating system..."

http://docs.freebsd.org/cgi/getmsg.cgi?fetch=59378+0+archive/2005/freebsd
-advocacy/20050213.freebsd-advocacy

"...For entertainment value, I should scan in the anonymous letter I
received
from someone in Kansas a few years ago.  It compared the Beastie to using
Osama Bin Laden as the FreeBSD logo, and was CC'd to my company and
research sponsors..."

Anyway,

The information is out there if you care to dig for it, and I didn't even
cheat
by looking on the committers archives mailing list.  The fact is that the
religious significance of Beastie and reaction to that coloring
perception of
FreeBSD, was a main driving point for a lot of people to
replacing Beastie as the logo, and the core group knew that if they
mentioned this it would cause a huge backlash, a lot worse than what
it did cause as it is, so pains were taken to strip out "official"
mention
that religion was playing a part.

For anyone who really cares, a -complete- read of the major threads in
questions and advocacy, on this topic, is the only way to get the
clear picture.  (it's not a pretty one)

Interestingly, while there were as you would expect, calls in -questions
to
shift the thread to -advocacy based on appropriateness, there were -also-
calls to shift the thread from -advocacy to elsewhere, based on
appropriateness.

In other words, one of the tellales in a discussion group that your
pulling back
the carpet on some nasty things that some folks are embarassed they are
doing, is the appearance of calls to move the discussion to a different
list.

Ted

PS I still like this one:

http://calinourson.free.fr/pics/FreeBSD/powertoflame.png