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Date: Sat, 05 Apr 1997 15:34:18 -0700
From: mike allison <mallison@konnections.com>
Organization: Publisher -- Burning Eagle Book Company
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To: "Jordan K. Hubbard" <jkh@time.cdrom.com>
CC: Pedro Giffuni <pgiffuni@fps.biblos.unal.edu.co>, chat@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject: Re: BSD's Mascot
References: <1637.860190691@time.cdrom.com>
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Free and Open computing is about offering a part of yourself for
acceptance and free change/exchange with others.  A part of that and a
large part of UNIX is understanding the puns and wordplay within the
system.  As said before a demon (or daemon) can be good or evil.  Their
intention in UNIX is for good, but often they are the focal point of
frustration.  Although the word 'demon' goes back to the 16th or
possibly the 15th century, it wwasn't until the late 17th and beginning
of the 18th century, roughly 1640 - 1706 that the word truely came to
denote an 'evil spirit'.  

"In Homer, there is scarcely any distinction between gods and daemons"
-GROTE.

"O' Anthony, Thy Daemon, that thy sirit which keeps thee, is Noble,
Couragious, high unmatchable..." Anthoony & Cleopatra II.iii.19

If anyone is so narrow that they cannot accept the humor and wit which
accompanies a system, and read something DEEP and DARK into that, well
maybe they have bigger problems than which SCSI adapter to buy.....

-Mike   

Jordan K. Hubbard wrote:
> 
> > I read some time ago that the "deamons" used by BSD were not so devilish
> > after all. The term deamon , in it's latin roots, refers to a higher
> > power, good or bad. In UNIX it is recognized that there are good and bad
> > deamons.
> 
> Greg Lehey has a synopsis of this in his book.  Indeed, they're not
> devlish.
> 
> > evil or devils, but probably our mascot will not gain acceptance in
> > certain countries where religious issues are really important (Israel,
> > Iran, Irak...).
> 
> I can live with that. :-)
> 
>                                         Jordan