Date: Thu, 17 Feb 2005 12:55:22 -0600 From: "Forsberg, Ben" <Ben.Forsberg@capella.edu> To: <freebsd-stable@FreeBSD.ORG> Subject: FW: Save the Demon! Message-ID: <C8A43D5939F36D438C5FDB4413CD7B0D024643E8@mspmail01.int.capella.lan>
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Mike Jakubik said: > Oliver Fromme said: >=20 > > > I'm not seeing a problem here. Beastie is not a religious icon, > > > not is it intended to be one. > > > > Right -- but it looks like one. And every now and then > > there are people who are offended by it because of their religious > > bias. > > Boo Hoo! Use Linux then, or is the Penguin sacrilege to your religion > too? Religion has no place here. Lets not divide and make wars over it, > like in real life. Or maybe the best approach would be to start a religion that fears wavy colored squares. I think that would work. Actually, what I think is this: People are irrational and are deeply affected by marketing. It used to be that the Neo-Classical Economic assumption of a Rational Consumer was only a small fiction. Now, since information is a commodity to be bought and sold the same as grain or pork bellies, this ideal omniscient consumer is even further from reality. There is no other way to explain why the market leader in operating system is technologically thirty years behind its competition (Windows 2000 finally implemented some features made modern in MULTICS!). I think, therefore, that rationally explaining to people that Beastie has no religios import and that they shouldn't be offended is not a viable solution. Just like rationally explaining to people that McDonalds' food is not really very good for you or that Nike doesn't actually make the shoes it sells doesn't seem to make much difference in peoples' buying patterns. People will think what they want to think and will make economic decisions (including the decision not to spend money on an operating system) based on whose packaging has more colors and who's got the slicker TV ad. Saying "FreeBSD is a better operating system" only gets you so far, no matter how true it is. For my two cents, I am a Christian, I have my Beastie Amor window sitter set to start automatically in my KDE profile because I like to see him there (goddammit, he's cute), and I think this contest is a perfect idea. But I'd still pay tithes at the Church of Salvation From Evil Wavy Colored Squares. ---- When I accidentally sent this directly to Mike instead of to the list, he responded: <quote> <snip/> I do agree with you though about marketing. Indeed FreeBSD=20 should have a nice logo, i just didnt like the fact that people were bringing religion in to the decision process. </quote> Which I thought was a sane rebuttal and ought to be made a part of my comment.
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