please, a little sanity about the logo

[cpghost at cordula.ws]

On Tue, Feb 15, 2005 at 04:00:00PM +0100, Roger 'Rocky' Vetterberg wrote:
> >This is similar to SuSE, RedHat and others who use their own
> >logos to distribute the one and only Linux kernel and
> >an assorted set of libraries and utilities. "Linux" itself
> >doesn't have a logo either (if we followed the party line
> >that Tux and Beastie were mascots and not logos).
> 
> Thats because nobody runs Linux. They run RedHat, SuSe, Debian 
> etc. Linux is a kernel, FreeBSD is an OS. There is a big difference.
> Your logic here implies that the suggestion would be to create a 
> logo for the FreeBSD *kernel*, and that has afaik never even been 
> brought up.

No, this is not a Kernel vs. OS argument. It's about the difference
between the developers (kernel + userland in Linuxland, or the
whole FreeBSD OS in our case), and the vendors. The developers
do what they can do best: writing and testing excellent code.
The vendors package that stuff in neat boxes, print advertizing
and send out people to convince the "suits" to buy their packed
product.

Vendors are excellent at designing logos, and at marketing (at least
they should be!), while developers excel at coding. That's my point,
not that silly Kernel+Userland vs Whole OS comparison.

> >The FreeBSD Project should IMHO remain vendor neutral,
> >and stick to code development. 
> 
> Absolutely. No argument here, and so far I have not heard anyone 
> else, pro or con image change, argue otherwise.

This is exactly the point here. By calling for a logo competition,
the Project is mutating into a vendor. If that is really the idea,
a lot of problems could ensue, e.g. for the Foundation's non-profit
status etc...

Talking about this is perhaps much more important that a puny fight
over logos, Beastie, or whatever.

> As pointed out earlier, FreeBSD runs on more edge webservers then 
> most of the linux distros combined, and still hardly anyone 
> outside the community of hardcore geeks knows what BSD is. Just 
> that sentence alone should get people to realize that maybe we 
> are missing something here!

You're absolutely right here!

Cheers,
-cpghost.

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