Please don't change Beastie to another crap logo such asNetBSD!!!

[Ted Mittelstaedt]

owner-freebsd-questions at freebsd.org wrote:
> On Wednesday 09 February 2005 07:09 pm, - wrote:
>> http://www.petitiononline.com/fbsdmsc1/petition.html
>>
>> Julien Gabel wrote:
>>>>> See the thread "The FreeBSD Project is announcing a public
>>>>> competition for the new logo design. ????" in -advocacy - I've
>>>>> already replied with my views on the subject, along the same
>>>>> lines as your comments.
>>>>
>>>> I'm not subscribed to -advocacy can you provide me with an archive
>>>> link to this thread in question? I wasn't able to find it based on
>>>> the subject you provided.
>>>
>>> You can follow this post at:
>>>  http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-advocacy/2005-February/
>
> I have been watching the fallout regarding this issue on both the
> advocacy and questions email lists.  It is clear from the advocacy
> list, that the announcement was made prematurely and did not convey
> the intended message either clearly or completely.

That is true.

> It is clear from
> reading both lists that much of the anger is based upon false
> assumptions, misinformation and incomplete editing of the leaked
> document.
>

Sorry, but that is false.

Much of the anger is based on Robert Watson (and whatever other
core members are arguing with him over this) not IMMEDIATELY becoming
completely forthright with the FreeBSD community as soon as the leak
occurred.

I am deeply concerned with what I see going on here.  Since when has
the FreeBSD Project had "secret" information of a sales and marketing
nature?  This is a brand new one to me.

I can condone secrets in the area of leaglities - such as back in
the bad old days when UCB was sued by USL, there were many secrets,
a few that I and some others were able to ferret out but still many
buried, and still some people under gag orders.

But there has never before in the entire history of the FreeBSD Project
been a situation where sales and marketing information has been
considered
"secret"  Sure, BSDI operated like this - but they were not part of
the FreeBSD Project.

And, I am also concerned about the historical revisionists who
are claiming FreeBSD never had a logo.  That is hogwash.  Nobody
ever said that FreeBSD lacked a logo until after a few days ago
when this ill-conceived competition was leaked - because everyone
knew the logo was Beastie.

Yes I understand that some commercial consultants and such have had
problems due to the logo being a devil image.  But if Robert Watson
had wanted to respond to this then he should have brought it up
for discussion with the userbase immediately, not sneaked around
talking to his cronies at Apple Computer, trying to figure out how
to push this off onto the userbase in a way that people wouldn't
object to doing so.  This logo competition is childish - 99% of the
FreeBSD community members are not graphic artists and couldn't draw
their way out of a paper bag - such a competition does not have as
it's goal that of obtaining an image, it's only goal is assuaging
pissed off people by pretending that they have a hand in the decision.

> I (just a user) ask that the petition effort be delayed until the
> official announcement is made and the issues can be drawn out and
> discussed more clearly.
>

No, sorry.  The core team apparently feels that the way to do things
now is to made decisions of this nature first, then have discussion
later, rather than the reverse which previously has been the case.

Therefore if they are going to play it like this, then all users
who disagree with this idea should do exactly as they are doing.
In short, we have made our decision we don't want to see beastie
removed from logo status, and we will be happy to discuss it
after we have made up our minds, just like the core team seems
happy to discuss their decision to jettison beastie as the logo,
after having made up their minds to do so.

I personally might have supported a logo change if the core team had
started tossing around the idea in the mailing lists FIRST in an
informal basis.  And I will also say that when I worked with Addison
Wesley
back in 2000 for the cover art for my book, I did consider this
as an issue that might possibly impact sales of my book.  However
I decided that I would be willing to take the financial impact on
a personal basis of losing a few sales to people who are so blinded
by their idea of religion that they wouldn't touch a book with an
image of a devil on the cover - because the FreeBSD devil image has
a historical significance to FreeBSD that is important.  After all,
in my book I am asking people to put aside their concerns that FreeBSD
is a non-commercial operating system, and run it on their production
business systems.  I would be a hipocrite of the worst kind if I
were to have not put aside my concerns that the Beastie image was
unacceptable to businesses.

However, as the core team as apparently represented by R Watson
has stated they want to consider this internally first,
then just tell the userbase what they are going to do later on, I
say screw you, and I'll argue and fight against this topic for
years.

Ted Mittelstaedt
Author, The FreeBSD Corporate Networker's Guide