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Date:      Thu, 10 Feb 2005 15:32:04 -0600
From:      Greg Barniskis <nalists@scls.lib.wi.us>
To:        freebsd-questions@freebsd.org
Subject:   Re: Logo Contest
Message-ID:  <420BD2D4.8080601@scls.lib.wi.us>
In-Reply-To: <752761759.20050210212728@wanadoo.fr>
References:  <200502091349.00708.algould@datawok.com> <1054192109.20050210101652@wanadoo.fr>	<420B6081.30206@pacific.net.sg> <1108044195.5517.74.camel@localhost.localdomain> <20050210163630.GF89175@keyslapper.net> <752761759.20050210212728@wanadoo.fr>

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Anthony Atkielski wrote:

> I can almost guarantee that if everyone involved took a magic drug that
> eliminated testosterone, a new logo would be agreed upon in a day or so.
> 

LOL ...to which I would add two words:   bike shed!

I have a great fondness for Beastie; that is clearly not uncommon
and obviously extends to the level of fierce loyalty on the part of
some in the community.

But really, if Kellog's cereal can have a stylized red "K" and Tony
the Tiger each serving their own distinct branding purposes WRT
Frosted Flakes, I do not see what the big deal is about FreeBSD
having a simple (scalable, printable) logo and a complex mascot as
well. It seems largely a matter of common sense, and in any case a
much smaller matter than  wringing any remaining inconsistencies out
of 5.x.

FWIW, when staff here deployed Mailman on our FreeBSD mail server,
the configuration proudly displayed the Python and FreeBSD "logos"
(let's not repeat the definition discussion) at the bottom of
the page. While internally we didn't have any problems with Beastie,
we then had a long discussion about the feelings of *our* customers
who might see him and be [uncomfortable|confused|alarmed|fsckwits]
about it. We ended up hacking Beastie out of the page. All things
considered, I'd like to have that 90 minutes of my life back. ;-)

Point is, it's not just about the community of FreeBSD users, it's
about our customers too. I'd hate to see management support for BSD
wither here, not because Beastie is inherently bad, but just because
the issues within Beastie's "PR cloud" can easily extend beyond the
walls of the IT wing and create drag in communications planning.

Drag is drag and drag is undesirable; discussing the difference
between demon and daemon can be a drag. As a result, I cannot
effectively evangelize my organization's use of FreeBSD, or even
relate that use to the use of competing systems, except in text.

I'd actually forgotten about that problem for a long time. Now that
I've put a name to it again, I say: Love Beastie. Honor Beastie.
Keep Beastie around on various web pages, book covers, shirts, etc.
But getting a new logo for general purpose brand identification is 
definitely not a bad idea.

-- 
Greg Barniskis, Computer Systems Integrator
South Central Library System (SCLS)
Library Interchange Network (LINK)
<gregb at scls.lib.wi.us>, (608) 266-6348



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