BSD logo (a moderate opinion)

[Bob Hall]

On Thu, Jul 29, 2010 at 09:52:07AM +0200, ?????? wrote:
> On Wed, 28 Jul 2010 12:55:04 -0600
> Dale Scott <dalescott at shaw.ca> wrote:
> 
> > Personally, I enjoy our mascot Beastie, as well as the
> > Beastie-influenced official logo. I also smile when I see Casper,
> > Wendy andHotStuff. However, I also accept there are individuals who
> > understand these symbols differently than me, and that I may be
> > alienating them to my detriment.  It seems consumer products need to
> > be mindful of cultural differences, is FreeBSD different? A larger
> > community and increased OS market share wouldn't be all that bad,
> > would it?
> > 
> > I hope that those of you who believe in FreeBSD but with a personal
> > conflict with the mascot or logo, band together and propose a
> > complementary alternate symbol. I don't mean flooding the mail list
> > (it's obvious we can do that on our own), I'm talking about difficult
> > time-consuming organization, lobbying, and support gathering. For me,
> > I hope Beastie endures forever - he our first and legacy mascot - but
> > I also wouldn't object to one or two more officially sanctioned
> > mascots and logos either. 
> > 
> > Dale Scott
> > 
> 
> Personally, I tried to stay out of this conversion (because it's OT and
> I find all religions annoying). But, anyway, IIRC, the reason why
> our nice little beastie is no longer the official FreeBSD logo, is the
> sentiments you just mentioned. There was a discussion about this years
> ago on one of the mailing lists (I don't remember which one anymore),
> which resulted in a contest, and the result is the horned ball logo you
> find on the top of www.freebsd.org. This is also the reason why we
> have to add 'beastie_disable="NO"' to /boot/loader.conf after a fresh
> install now. So, please, refrain from calling for yet another new logo.

Beastie is the mascot, and the sex toy is the logo. It is only the
mascot that the OP objected to. He didn't mention any objections to the
logo.

As far as marketing products to a wide range of buyers, googling for
"red devil" gets me

Red Devil home repair and refinishing products
Red Devil Italian Restaraunt
Red Devil Equipment Co.
Red Devil Lounge
Red Devil Energy drink
Red Devil snow blowers
Red Devil hot sauce
Red Devil Records
Red Devil brakes
Red Devil pedicab service
Red Devil fire training and consuling

You'll get a similar list if you google for "blue devil".

So it seems that Beastie has lots of company out there in product land.
Images of devils seem to be successful in marketing products. I don't
believe that creating an alternative to Beastie is going to do
anything to increase FBSD market share.

My best wishes to the OP. I hope he finds something he's comfortable
with.