Should Hackers Get Their Own Logo?

Ridgelift writes "Eric S. Raymond is proposing a new logo for Hackerdom. 'The Linux folks have their penguin and the BSDers their demon. Perl's got a camel, FSF fans have their gnu and OSI's got an open-source logo. What we haven't had, historically, is an emblem that represents the entire hacker community of which all these groups are parts. This is a proposal that we adopt one - the glider pattern from the Game of Life.'"

Comments

Interesting

[TheSpoom]

I like it.

I figure a lot of people are going to say something along the lines of "to hell with this, we don't ALL need a logo", but IMHO it's just a cool little thing that could easily be embedded (or hidden) in things like logos or programs (being just a 9x9 matrix).

Though I think it would probably be best and easiest represented as pixels rather than circles on a grid.

Re:Interesting

[TheSpoom]

Perhaps you mean this :^)

.*.
..*
***

(select Code as the post type)

Re:Interesting

[smallfeet]

Wait, isn't the game of life all about reproduction? What the hell does that have to do with hackers? Is this suppose to be ironic?

Re:Interesting

[$0.02]

Yes it is a game of reproduction .... in which gliders do not reproduce. Think about it.

Re:Non-conformists

[Felonius Thunk]

Remember that you're unique, just like everybody else.

hackers, indeed

[SweetAndSourJesus]

From the page: "Here is a snippet of XHTML you can paste into a page.

<a href='http://www.catb.org/hacker-emblem/'>
<img src='http://www.catb.org/hacker-emblem/glider.png' ></a>"

Note that this isn't valid XHTML.

-1, Troll;

[mookie-blaylock]

This seems kind of ridiculous and pointless. Sure, it's an interesting idea, but it seems like a kind of needless branding of an identity/concept. Plus, you'll see all the least qualified latching onto it first, to prove that they're so plugged in to the culture.

And then in three months, it'll show up on peoples' resumes. And business cards. And we'll all die a little bit.

Speaking of which, time to update my resume, this may be the key to getting my hyper-1337 job.

Re:-1, Troll;

[Our Man In Redmond]

Ah, but that's precisely the beauty of the concept. We'll be able to identify ourselves by seeing who doesn't use the logo!

Kind of like being able to tell if someone is pretending to have been a Navy SEAL because they're talking about/displaying their medals.

obvious

[McAddress]

the need for a logo is obvious. After all, /. was forced to use the linux logo for this.

Just for that comment...

[Ignominious Poltroon]

... you can't use the icon.

Re:how about a secret handshake instead?

[cmallinson]

1) it needs color

if a logo "needs colour" it wasn't designed well. If you're making a logo for something, first design it in b&w, make sure it look good, then add your colour. That way, the logo will still be effective when photocopied, faxed, or viewed by those with less than perfect colour perception.

In a word, no

[mhesseltine]

Hackers don't need nor want a logo. Does ESR really think that most hackers are just dying to put logos on their coffee cups, hats, shirts, etc? If a hacker wants to express himself, he'll do it through hacking.

If we do have a logo, I think it should be a vector rendered shilouete of a fat, unwashed, unshaven hacker sitting in front of a PC.

Now how to vote on this?

[Irvu]

I For one suggest that we take a vote on this preferably with Diebold Touchscreen machines. Thas way the truly determined hackers will win.

Even anarchists have a logo

[dstone]

You want a group that has been, historically, non-conformists to agree on something so singular as a logo?

Sure. Even anarchists have a logo, for god's sake!

Hackers are a rich subculture, and it's been that way for decades. Hackers share common life views, activities, and experiences that are different than the mainstream. So they're distinctive and weird, not unlike peace-activists, republicans, christians, motorcyclists, masons, homosexuals, etc. They've all got their logos that some wear with pride and others choose not to. But if you do choose to fly the flag, at least there's a community understanding of what it means.

One problem I see with a logo though, is that hackers tend to hate posers (since hacking is more about competence than simply attitude). And it's easier to pose with a logo.

Re:Even anarchists have a logo

[cmacb]

"(since hacking is more about competence than simply attitude)"

Oh. Then I propose a new logo for us incompetent hackers. It's a much more meaningful symbol...

* *
***
* *

The leter H which in the game of life disolves into nothingness after 6 generations. Just like most of my programs.

Think about the audience

[panaceaa]

Can't open source hackers have ONE THING that goes down on them???
Geez, it's not like they're getting girls to do it.

Re:Why this one?

[Anonymous Coward]

Because the enemy's gate is DOWN.

dyslexic hackers UNTIE!

[joe_bruin]

#|O|#
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O|O|O

Re:dyslexic hackers UNTIE!

[randyest]

I love the "dyslexics of the world: untie!" joke, but I must ruin your variation by pointing out that the flyer object represented in the proposed hacker logo has the same "flying" (moving) qualities regardless of symmetry (vertical and horizontal flips, and/or rotations in any direction by 90 degree increments yields a virtual object with the same behaviour). So it wouldn't really be dyslexic at all to have the little arrow formed by your flyer point to the lower-left, as opposed to the arbitrary orientation in the proposed logo.

Which makes me wonder why ESS picked that particular direction/orientation. Surely the choice was not politically motivated, since the arrow points to the right (lower-right, yes, but definitely not left as one might expect). Then again, you might say the vertical element sort of leans left, so that would be appropriate. :)

Seriously, I'm still not sure about the whole logo idea. On one hand, I really don't care -- those that like it should feel free to use it and, in time, it may garner some respect. If not, those who embraced it will be ridiculed for an appropriate length of time and intensity. On the other hand, it sucks because, well, because it's a logo. And a contrived one, specifically chosen to try to be cool, which is, of course, as un-cool as you can get. If a logo for the hacker community just sort of happened accidentally, as the result of some odd, unexpected, unifying event or meme, it might stick. But I think a contrived logo, even with a reference as cool as John Conway built in, is unlikely to catch on.

But, on the bright side, R'ing TFA led me to this funny hacker FAQ that I hadn't seen before. Very accurate, if a bit too condescending. Regardless, my boss is getting a copy of this right now -- not that he really needs is, but he'll laugh for sure and maybe learn a little.

Re:Incompetent hackers

[jabber01]

Yes, that form of the letter "H", crapily formatted to not look like one, due to the assumption that HTML "knows what you mean", is the perfect logo for incompetent and ignorant hacker wannabes!

I'm putting it im my sig lines and sig files right now, since, well, I'm not just the incompetent hacker club president, I'm also a client.

Re:I thought they already had one....

[dtolton]

Interestingly he's not referring to Hackers as the term is commonly applied.

He is referring to the original sense of Hacker.

Read his articles:
How to be a Hacker
A brief history of hackerdom.

I think the logo is a great idea. Yes a lot of people who don't deserve to have the logo will display it, but then that won't change anything from how it is today.

Identity

[Praeluceo]

Of course hackers are in need of a logo. We are a disparate group of loosely knit geeks who all have a common passion.
I believe also that any true hacker will readily admit ESR's contributions to our community, and possession of the title of "hacker" himself, perhaps I'd even go so far as to call him an "Alpha-hacker".

What's to prevent us from clinging to some logo that we can use to at least superficially identify other people as like-minded. If I'm sitting at a cyber-cafe and see a glider taped to some guy's laptop as he surfs some C, I'm going to recognize that I'm looking at someone who just might be a hacker. This is not a "status symbol" in the real world, in fact most people in the real world will never acknowledge ESR's hacker logo unless someone does something Really Big And Stupid while publically displaying it.

And why not the glider? We're hackers, we all know who JohnConway is, and what fun his Game of Life is. I'm willing to bet half of us have had an infatuation with it at some point or another, and half of that has even written their own little implementation of the thing.

If you don't like the logo, go for the spirit and choose a Up-Left glider, or a Cross (although that might be taken religiously), or you could be really cryptic and slap a 3rd-generation glider on the back of your T-Shirt (a 6th-generation "pump" looks pretty good too).

Sure there will be posers, but as they say, "You will know them by their works". If the code doesn't back up the glider, then just laugh and show them what real "elite" hacking looks like.

Just my 2 cents worth, I like ESR's logo, and will probably be putting a glider of some form on my website in the near future. Just to set myself apart that little bit more.