The FreeBSD Project is announcing a public competition for the new logo design. ????

[Mark Murray]

Erich Dollansky writes:
> The EU is starting a procedure to ban the swastika from use as it was 
> used by some 100 million nazis and most of them are meanwhile dead. The 
> EU is totally ignoring the fact that some 2 billion people are using it 
> as a religious symbol.

This is slightly overstating the situation. Certainly the "hakenkreuz" 
is illegal in the form that the nazis used it, but the Buddhist(Hindu?) 
form is comaparatively rare in EU, and is thus being kinda ignored, to 
its detriment. There is recognition of this fact, and publicity is 
helping to educate the right folks.

> The same things happens here too. A minority is making a lot of noise 
> and the majority is expected to move.

Outright crap. This is conspiracy theory rubbish.

> People who do not like the new logo should come up with the same reasons 
> against the new one. It is alsways possible with this kind of arguments 
> to be against everything.

Huh?

There _are_ concerns about the controversial nature of Beastie, as well 
as his reproducability.

We need a logo that is

1) Simple to reproduce at all sizes and with limited colours.

The current images of Beastie (used where a simple, FreeBSD-specific 
logo would be more appropriate) is hard to reproduce on marketing 
materials because its too complex for the printing process, and doesn't 
scale well to small icons and/or large graphics.

2) Non-controversial.

We want a logo that manufacturers can put on their box next to a sign
that says "Works with FreeBSD", and we dont want to get blowback from
the company saying "When we put the devil on the box, we got boatloads
of letters complaining".

What would happen if the religious swastika was used as a manufacturing 
logo on (say) T-shirts sold in Israel or USA (assuming its not banned 
there). I suggest it would be a marketing disaster when folks who don't 
know the difference kick up a fuss, and is thus a LOUSY choice for a 
logo, even though it is not used as a nazi symbol.

THIS is what the logo competition is about.

Beastie the mascot is here to stay.

M
--
Mark Murray
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