New Logo

[Ted Mittelstaedt]

>-----Original Message-----
>From: owner-freebsd-questions at freebsd.org
>[mailto:owner-freebsd-questions at freebsd.org]On Behalf Of Steve Bertrand
>Sent: Tuesday, November 01, 2005 5:28 PM
>To: 'Greg 'groggy' Lehey'
>Cc: 'FreeBSD Questions'
>Subject: RE: New Logo
>
>
>-- snip --
>
>> That's correct, but we should recall that this is a mailing
>> list to ask technical questions, not discuss logos or flame
>> people.  Discuss logos on the advocacy@ list; don't flame
>> people on any list.
>
>I don't post here often, lest I ask a question, but I appreciate these
>sorts of comments by people we 'observe' make reliable, wholesome and
>always to-the-point-from-experience posts day in and day out.
>
>Keep the FBSD lists clean of flames. I haven't followed this entire
>thread, but opinions about the new logo should go to advocacy.
>However...there should be somewhere else where people can state their
>political views to too. -questions is not that list.
>

Steve, the description for -questions is:

"User questions AND technical support"

A legitimate question is "What is all this logo change business about"
particularly from a newbie.  Would you rather the newbies get their
information on this logo business from Slashdot?  At least here we
have a FreeBSD community involved.

For the newbies that are indeed wondering what all this is about the
summary is that about 9 months to a year ago, one of
the major FreeBSD core committers got a bug up his ass because
some jackass at a presentation he was making on FreeBSD asked
"Why is the logo the Devil, is FreeBSD done by a bunch of
devil-worshippers"

Anyway, instead of simply looking at the questioner with an expression
like "what kind of fucking moron are you" and ignoring it, or better yet
using it as an opportunity to initiate a discussion of the rich UNIX
history,
this committer started making a horses-ass of himself on the mailing
lists.

Eventually, Robert Watson, or someone like that in the core, thought
up the idea of the contest, with the philosophy that this was such a
minor an unimportant issue that who gives a flying fuck about it, but
a contest would at least shut up the people who were clamoring for
Beastie to be booted off the webpage.  Who knows, maybe they could
come up with something pretty and at least we could get some mileage
out of the artistic types.

This issue is a textbook example of how a loud obnoxious intragent
minority can get it's way.  The majority of people in the Project,
both users and committers, know that Beastie isn't the Devil, and
know that it's useless to try to appease some religious fruitcake
that Beastie isn't the Devil.  To these people, the issue isn't that
important.

But to the right-wing religious nutcases, this is a life-or-death issue.
Beastie must Go to Hell so that FreeBSD can be purged clean.
These folks are UTTERLY convinced that once Beastie is given the
boot, that people will flock to FreeBSD.

So for the majority, it's easier to give way on a minor issue so they
don't have to listen to the minority constantly harping on the hundreds
if not thousands of users who are dropping FreeBSD right and left
because they think we are devil-worshippers.

That is why this logo change was pushed through without a vote
on whether it was needed or not.  The core group knew perfectly
well that if they put it to a vote that the users would vote to leave
things alone, ie: maintain status quo.  But they also know that the
right wingers with spittle flying off their chins about how terrible
Beastie is, would not stop trying to burn Beastie on the stake,
simply because the majority was against them.  That is the definition
of a fanatic - to ignore what the rest of the world is telling them.

What gets me mad about this is the injection of religion
into it.  I am not opposed to fanatical minorities getting their ways
at times.  After all I'm for wiping Windows off the face of the Earth
and replacing it with UNIXes.  But while I may say that Bill Gates
is the most immoral person on the planet for breaking the rules to
illegally squash competition, I have never said that he is a
devil-worshipper or a Scientologist, or some such.  I think
the people claiming we need to give Beastie the boot because people
are religiously offended by devil images have crossed the line.

Ted