NetBSD Announces Logo Design Competition
jschauma writes "The NetBSD Project has announced that it has
launched an international competition for the creation of a new logo. There
is a cash prize of US $100.00 for the winning entry. The successful logo will
also have wide exposure, featuring in all NetBSD material including, but not
limited to; the NetBSD.org web site, software media, apparel, and business
systems. The competition will close on February 29, 2004. The rules of the
competition, submission information and the design brief can be found in the
official
announcement, which has already spawned some discussion on the netbsd-advocacy
and current-users
MailingLists." The announcement notes that the current logo is "too complicated... hard to reproduce... [and] has negative cultural, and religious ramifications."
"too complicated... hard to reproduce... [and] has negative cultural, and religious ramifications."
So political correctness has made it to open source.
Oy!
Progressivism: Parasites helping parasites to help themselves - to other people's stuff.
There is a cash prize of US $100.00 for the winning entry.
With the dollar going the way it is it'll cost me more to bank the cheque than it is worth over here!
--
This sig is inoffensive.
> too complicated...
for whom? for what?
> hard to reproduce...
== hard to forge...
> [and] has negative cultural, and religious
> ramifications.
No, it doesn't. It's a cartoon devil. It doesn't offend anyone. Really. Unless you're one of those freaks who won't let their kids watch Scoobie-doo because it's got ghosts in it. Trust me. If it were hanging on a cross or wearing a turban, *then* maybe it'd need changing.
Sheesh!
These sigs are more interesting tha
oh, wait. nevermind.
The difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits.
The BSD d(a)emon holding a gladiator-like net.
Sigs for Nerds. Sigs that Matter.
NetBSD's claim to fame is running on everything from your PC to a dead squirrel in a cardboard box.
Several people have posted (in the usual /. manner) that they don't see an issue with the devil, it's a cartoon, right wing religious wackos, etc. Well its not the devil, it's what the devils are doing. The devils are in a pose that mimics one that is usually associated with valour and the giving of ones life for "liberty" (whether or not you agree that this particular pose does or not is for another discussion). So now you have a logo that uses characters associated with negative deeds (the devil, cartoon or not) in the place of men associated with honor and self sacrafice. Given the current events, I could see how this logo, while passing under the radar for many years, is now suddenly considered inappropriate.
I can understand how many would find it inappropriate, which is unfortunate because for those who've been around the BSD and the computer scene for a while know exactly what the logo is trying to represent and it's quite accurate in that regard.
The original Iwo Jima photo by Joe Rosenthal was faked the day after the victory. In the NetBSD reproduction, the US troops have been replaced by devils, and the mountain top is a pile of computer hardware. The US flag has become a simple banner proclaiming NET Bsd. Notwithstanding any political correctness in this decision, it is hard to see the relevance of the current logo.
I stole this
If you're asking about the OS, it's pretty good. The troll below was thinking of OpenBSD -- and a bit off the mark -- but basically, think OpenBSD without the security focus, with the conveniences of FreeBSD (sometimes done better; pkgsrc is rather sweet, and claims to handle builds on Linux as well!), relatively small installation size, cutting-edge features, and of course, ridiculous portability. Definitely Just The Thing for that 486DX2-50 collecting dust (unless it's to be a firewall or bastion host - then you want OpenBSD), and quite useful anywhere else as well.
If you're planning an 'intensive' workload (more specifically, "if you're planning something that will actually put stress on a $2,000+ server"), then FreeBSD and soon DragonFly will be worth looking into. (DragonFly will be cool for other reasons, but then, I'm a fanboy.)
As to this logo business... Well, in a perfect world, people would use BSDs more often, and accept any lingering 'incorrectness' to the logo (it's supposed to be a daemon, not a demon, so the saying goes) as the price paid for getting a great, maintainable, don't-even-have-to-follow-GPL-sharealike-rules OS. But pragmatically, a lot of NetBSD core seems to work for Wasabi Systems -- call them the RedHat of NetBSD, but of course, the overall NetBSD community doesn't quite have the size and clout of the 'Linux community,' so keeping those guys fed is more intrinsic to the project's survival in the near term. If the logo's losing them contracts (and what's worse than losing a contract for nontechnical reasons?), then hey, maybe it's time for the weird to turn pro.
1) Change the colour. Red is too demonic. Black would be good, no-one objects to Tux after all, but you wanna make the face stand out. Make that much lighter, and slightly more prominent.
2) Lose the horns. Something like big round ears would be friendlier.
3) Lose the pitchfork and tail. You want something that gives an air of class - like white gloves
4) No nudity, please; we need more than trainers or this is just pornography. Put shorts on the dude or something. You could even make them red, sort of a homage to the original. But you'd need to simplify the footwear.
That would be perfect. No-one could ever object to that.
It would look something like this : google link
free experimental electronic music netlabel at www.viablehybrid.com
Pentium
It is called "Pentium" because it is the fifth in the 80x86 line. It would have been called the 80586 had a US court not ruled that you can't trademark a number.
The successors are the Pentium Pro and Pentium II.
The following Pentium variants all belong to "x86 Family 6", as reported by "Microsoft Windows" when identifying the CPU:
Model Name
1 Pentium Pro
2 ?
3 Pentium II
4 ?
5, 6 Celeron or Pentium II
7 Pentium III
8 Celeron uPGA2 or Mobile Pentium III
The name was chosen because of difficulties Intel had in trademarking a number. It suggests the number five (implying 586) while (according to Intel) conveying a meaning of strength "like
titanium".
Intel did not stick to this convention when naming its P6 processor the Pentium Pro; many believe this is due to difficulties in selling a chip with "sex" in its name. Successor chips have been
called `Pentium II' and `Pentium III'.
Sorry, the above comments I pirate it off - http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=pentium
The last paragraph is more closely related to NetBSD (or all BSDs in general) problem. I read an article somewhere years ago that, Intel actually engaged a consulting firm in order to come out with a name for suitable for the 586. One of the criterias was that it must be something not offensive in any languages spoken worldwide.
Call it political correctness, but you don't offend anyone if you can help it. Especially a wold class entity doing business worldwide.
NetBSD, is an entity that transact with people all over the world. People from all walks of life. Personally, I love the BSD daemon, kinda cute.. But I'm sure it is not the OS of choice for some/most religious organization.. Esp. those conservative ones who have yet to discover fire.
Well, if they decide on a new logo in order not to offend the sensibilities of 'potential' customers, why not indeed?
Regards all and everyone - peace!
Will sys-admin for food
Beastie, although he is really a BSD thing in general, is most associated with FreeBSD. OpenBSD adopted Puff the Blowfish and it is instantly recognizable as obsd. I think NetBSD design submitters ought to choose a new animal - perhaps a stingray, a lobster, a crab, or some other creature that can defend itself - and go for it. Then NetBSD will have some individual recognizable identity to those outside the BSD aware.
Please allow me to introduce myself
I'm an OS of wealth and taste
I've been around for a long, long year
Stole many a man's soul and faith
And I was 'round when Gary Kildall
Had his moment of doubt and pain
Made damn sure that Bill Gates
Washed his hands and sealed his fate
Pleased to meet you
Hope you guess my name
But what's puzzling you
Is the nature of my game
I stuck around Digital
When I saw it was a time for a change
Killed VMS and its decendents
The VAXen screamed in vain
I rode my way
through USLs day
when the lawsuit raged
and the licenses stank
Hope you guess my name, oh yeah
Ah, what's puzzling you
Is the nature of my game, oh yeah
I watched with glee
While your kings and queens
Fought for ten decades
For the OSes they made
I shouted out,
Who killed System V?
When after all
It was you and me
etc... my apology to the Rolling Stones..
I believe this is a good idea, from a branding standpoint.
The loss of the BSD daemon may be unfortunate, but looking at major brands it's pretty clear recognition doesn't require a cool mascot. To name a few: Nike, Adidas, Mercedez-Benz and Nokia all have rather simple comporate symbols.
If the NetBSD project wishes to look more professional in the eyes of marketeers, this is a good move.
.: Max Romantschuk
Can be found here...
Wait a minute - this is NETBSD we're talking about here, right?
The bigotry of the nonbeliever is for me nearly as funny as the bigotry of the believer. - Albert Einstein
...and they didn't even tell me.
Way to gout out of your way there, Net BSD. After years of loyal servitude, this is how you treat me.
Cue The Sun...
Wasn't the devil just a corrupted angel anyway?
--
This sig is inoffensive.
.02
cLive ;-)
-- Trinity in high heels carrying a whip: The donimatrix - there is no spoonerism
I can totally understand updating or changing a logo to get attention or even seperate NetBSD from the other distros, but if anyone changes a logo because of stupid assumptions then I must abandon it based on principle. I fear deeply computer-illetirate people might view find it a symbol of evil because it runs on the a computer it must be Microsoft.
Last I checked the US wasn't a theocracy...
When was the last time you checked?
Al.The Daily ACK - Eclectic posts by yet another hacker
Less is more !
First of all, let me say that the daemons in the logo look more to me like the Noid from the Domino's Pizza commercials of the mid-1980s.
Second, these cartoon daemons bear even less resemblance to the Biblical devil than the modern-day Santa Claus image does to St. Nicholas of Myra. Nowhere in the Bible is Satan described as a red, scaly gentleman with horns and a bifurcated tail who carries a hayfork. That image is a product of the Middle Ages. The BSD version is a cariacature at that. There's simply nothing here that should offend anyone's religious sensibilities.
I am Sartre of the Borg. Existence is futile.
Because when people see a picture of Bill Gates, they pretty much assume they're getting a Microsoft product.
This is not my sandwich.
I know that the conventional wisdom is:
But, in reality, NetBSD runs on so many platforms as a side effect of their stated policy to implement things the Right Way rather than ever relying on hacks.
NetBSD is one of the cleanest, most logical, and most innovative open source projects out there.
For example, NetBSD takes an insanely good idea (the FreeBSD ports collection) and makes it even better. Pkgsrc (NetBSD's answer to ports) is built in such a way that allows you to run it on Solaris, Linux, and a number of other operating systems. Plus it has a built-in package security auditing tool.
FreeBSD et al are moving toward NetBSD's innovative init system which in my mind combines the power of SysV and the ease of use of *BSD.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe NetBSD was the first OS anywhere to support ipv6.
NetBSD always seems to chug away in relative obscurity, with even BSD folk ignoring and misunderstanding it. Yeah, it's great for embedded work. Yeah, it'll run on almost anything. But it's also a really great workstation. And their uncompromising approach to quality and correct implementation make it a very stable and logical general purpose OS.
So, I for one welcome the new logo, and hope that it helps to bring NetBSD out of the shadows and allows my fellow open source users to enjoy another excellent operating system.
-Peter
. Penguins Surely Ca
Ok, it seems to me most people here don't seem to look at logo design from an ease of use or professionality standpoint, let alone from a design aspect. Everyone seems to be skating around the fact that with exception to the religious or mythical issues and the problem with a off-the-wall politcal cartoon feel, the design itself is quite the opposite of a business/ease of use point-of-view. Sure it's open source but NetBSD is in the "business" of supplying an open source medium for its users to enjoy and interact with. If anything the logo should almost have a conservative corporate fee, with just a wee bit of open-source attitude to the side just to show that open-source is the sort of black sheep child of the WWW network infrastructure not to mention the software world. So keep your minds open guys. This is a world-based community, and there's probably someone out there offended by the spoof of the Iwo Jima memorial and there could also be some "religious stiff" offended by the devil/daemon aspect. Also remember that the general public doesn't know anything about the greek background of language and their english counterparts, let alone would they really want a lecture on it. When designing you have to take the audience seriously but not yourself too seriously. Creativity can come in spades but if you don't know how to apply it properly it won't get you anything but trouble.
NAA! (Not Another Acronym!)
Losing faith in humanity one person at a time.
It's not just deeply religious people, or computer illiterate people, or people who leap quickly to stupid assumptions that make this logo a problem. First, the name isn't clear or catchy enough to be widely recognized, so the devil image becomes all most people have to go on. Imagine running across the person wearing a Duke Blue Devils sweatshirt, but the First word is "Forxgnarb", you've never heard the term before, there's no thing or place named that anywhere nearby, and when you ask what the blue devil stands for, the first things you hear are all about vaguely political issues, as seen by some small minority organization. How stupid is it really, to jump to the conclusion the sweatshirt wearer is in some cult?
NetBSD isn't going to get brand recognition from the word, just like Adidas didn't build brand recognition just on the word. It sounds too odd for that. Like Adidas, it's competing against words that have more relevance to the area (Microsoft sounded like computer stuff way back when it started, with words like software already paving the way for recognition - Nike is the greek goddess of victory, as most Olympic atheletes know).
If anything, the cuteness of the logo works against it more than an association with evil. It's a Warner Bros toon style devil. That's already saying "fine for home users, but would you trust a business to it?".
Who is John Cabal?
What's so wrong with Pencil? Abstract wierd font logos is very 1980's IMO. ... regarding Net's logo, it isn't the pencil in itself, but the fact that its large, and doesnt resemble the classic beasty, and as someone said in another thread they resemble the noids... The thing is too big /some/ extent pencil art from an actual contributer to the project to me has more value than a formaliac profesional going-rate-per-hour work. To me that kind of abstract type face logo stuff, has been doon so much, so many tools to do just, that its hardly even applied art, but has become a very /safe/ , bland, choice.
EA's (Electronic Arts) Logo was the best of the genre, and I feel that that really thats stuff has become cookie-cutter, mainly complained about by Comerical Artists looking for work... As far the GNU
To
Jack Chick is full of shit in more ways than I can count. A lot of the stuff in that tract is a good exposition of the systems of control that the catholic church uses, but it's ignoring and corrupting the basic premises that support those sacraments. Furthermore, the idea of a vengeful god that rules by fear is somewhat outdated in the catholic roman Church (old testament stuff). Salvation (or the wafer thing) is not to be denied arbitrarily in order to acquire power. Furthermore, what is exposed there amounts to finding an example of a pedophile priest and jumping to the conclusion that all priests are pedophiles.
Check out some more of the site. It's basically a collection of hate speech (particularly against gay people) in disguise of religious teachings.
Overcaffeinated. Angry geeks.
Quick nitpik - it is "Athena Nike" that is the Greek goddess of victory. Athena took a couple other forms too, like "Athena Parthenos".
signatures are for fools with hands
According to Christian Theology and Mythology, Lucifer (Son of Morning) was God's right hand man, basically the most capable and intelligent angel.
Then he rebelled and took a 1/3rd of the angels with him.
Hmmmm, troll looks HUNGRY.. guess I'll toss a bone.
I, personally, am deeply offended by the insane attempts of far too many otherwise intelligent people in this decade to bury the age-old stereotypes, differences of belief, and general feelings beneath a very thin veneer of political correctness. What's so wrong about being honest?
I'm not against integration, and I cherish diversity. Learning about other cultures is a good thing, but pretending they aren't different when they are is stupid. If wearing a red shirt is offensive to the group of people who were extras on ST:TOS, should everyone stop wearing red shirts because they MIGHT feel bad? I'd suggest that those people who become upset over P.C. issues should ask themselves why they're upset... and maybe grow up a little.
Where are the Satanists to defend their beliefs? Seriously, if Christians can get all bent out of shape at the logo of a devil, why can't Satanists demand that the cross be banned from public display because it offends them? Either it works both ways, or not at all.
The logo in question is being dragged through the mud because a few religious zealots woke up and started looking at free operating systems and saw a devil? What, are they so stupid that they assumed this literally meant "Satan Inside"? Didn't the cute smile tip them off about the concept of caricature?
I checked my calendar... it's not 040401 yet, and 040104 has passed (YYMMDD anyways), so let's repost this when the time is right.