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."

Comments

Looking for a politicly correct logo?

[HanzoSpam]

"too complicated... hard to reproduce... [and] has negative cultural, and religious ramifications."

So political correctness has made it to open source.

Oy!

Re:Looking for a politicly correct logo?

[quantum bit]

I read an anecdote here on Slashdot about someone who was in the American Deep South on holidays and was thrown out of a store for wearing a BSD shirt, and veiled hints that he had better leave town.

The store owner probably mistook the BSD daemon for the New Jersey Devils logo. Likely, the Stars were playing the Devils that week and that's why there was such a strong reaction.

Re:Looking for a politicly correct logo?

[DG]

True story:

Driving south on I-69 heading to Indianapolis, pull off to get something to eat at the typical "McDonalds on an exit" that are scattered all over the US.

My McMeal rings up as $6.66. Teenaged girl behind counter flips out, and insists that the food is free. When I try and tell her it's no big deal; I'm not afraid of a number she gets REAL upset and flat-out REFUSES to take my money.

Rather than cause more of a scene that was already developing, I accepted, and her relief was palpable - like my immortal soul had been just snatched back from the firey jaws of Satan himself.

Some people REALLY believe this devil shit is BAD.

DG

Re:Looking for a politicly correct logo?

[lylfyl]

How unusual was your order?

I can imagine that poor girl having a breakdown if $6.66 popped up everytime someone ordered something common.

Customer#1: "I'll have 2 Big Macs and a large Coke."
Cashier: "That'll be $6.66. AAAH! EVIL! Your meal is free."
Customer#2: "Cool! I'll have 2 Big Macs and a large Coke, too."
Cashier: "AAAH! It's free!"
Customer#3: "I'll have what they're having.."
Cashier: "AAAH! My soul! It's burning!"

$100?

[perly-king-69]

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!

Looks fine to me!

[CaptainAlbert]

> 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!

Re:Looks fine to me!

[dave420]

It's a devil. Devils are evil. Cartoon or not, it's a symbol with evil connotations, which some people could feasibly find offensive.

For any sort of organisation to have a logo which could cause offense isn't a good start.

After all, with your logic, a swastika is just a bunch of lines... how could that offend anyone?

Re:Looks fine to me!

[KillerLoop]

*not* the BSD devil, check out the link given in the story.

Re:Looks fine to me!

[Ubi_NL]

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.

It has nothing to do with the devils. It's a cartoon of a statue in which american soldiers are planting an american flag. That makes it culturally biased.

Although you have to be an idiot to be offended by it, loads of people (especially in some 'liberated' countries) are suchs type of idiots and there is no reason to get into this unnecessary type of trouble

Re:Looks fine to me!

[Bish.dk]

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.

Reminds me of this story featuring a poor sysadmin's experience in Hick Town, Texas.

Re:Looks fine to me!

[adrianbaugh]

> It's a devil.

It's not, it's a daemon. A friendly helper that lives inside your computer serving websites, answering your spam and being fingered. Really, if I had to put up with all that it'd be enough to make me grow horns and a tail!

Re:Looks fine to me!

[Ashtead]

The single cute "cartoon devil" (whose name may or may not be Chuck) that we see here on slashdot as the section logo for BSD, and which is really meant to be a visualization of a daemon, is not what's under consideration here. As a symbol for BSD, it is about as well-known and effective as Tux is for Linux.

However, these angry troll/devil hybrids in sneakers trampling over what appears to be a lot of desktop computer hardware however, is evidently what is found in need of an update.

I can list a few likely reasons for changing this, off the top of my head:

One thing is that devils is a somewhat religious device, not found in all religions.

Then there is the aesthetics of this. The logo is just kinda ugly. These guys are not all that different in appearance from some football hooligans... and after all, there is a strong element of marketing here, whether we like it or not. Would you want to buy an operating systems from these guys?

Political correctness or accusations of same, marketing and aestetics aside, I would say it is just as much that the design of the monitors is becoming dated, since many of us now have relatively skinny LCDs, not fat CRT-based ones. If nothing else, the logo is becoming tecnically dated.

All these could, individually, be considered warrants for change.

Re:Looks fine to me!

[EinarH]

Trust me, those religious nuts will have you arrested.

Yeah, but that is because they dropped out of school. If they had had any historic sence they probably would have recognized the original picture, and then it would have been okay for them.
(and let us not get into the discussion on wheter the picture is fake or not, that's offtopic)

Re:Looks fine to me!

[zerocool^]

Demon comes from the greek word diamon, or, more accurately delta-iota-alpha-mu-omicron-nu, depending on how it's declined. That's singular nominative (i think).

In helenistic greek, i.e. around the time of the peloponnesian wars, the word diamon meant sort of "guardian spirit", but implying that it could be either a mischievous spirit or a malevolent spirit. To blame things on a kakodiamon was to say that you had bad luck, and imply that you must be plagued by a mischievous diamon.

When the word was moved into other languages (i think it came to english via romance languages, stemming from latin), it changed to demon, and was christianized to mean "demon", i.e. servant of the dark lord (satan, not your boss, or bill gates, or $funny_guy_we_hate).

Yeah for me with my taking greek 1105. It was hard as crap, but wow, I learned a lot. For instance, this happened to a lot of words in greek. Take, for instance, the word that's used (at least in the new testamant in sinaiticus and the vatican codex) to mean "sin". In ancient greek, it meant "mistake" not "transgression". Although, I think that's one that the greeks had started to shift the meaning of before the christians got to it.

But, yeah, I've got this big thing for etymology, being 18 hours away from a history degree, and still eagerly taking every social sciences class I can fit in. For instance, when I see WindowsXP, I see windows, version christ. XP are the greek letters Chi Rho, which are the first letters of the word "christ", chi-rho-iota-sigma-tau-omicron-sigma. They're the letters constantine the great saw in the sky when he converted his army to christianity at the milvian bridge in 312(? i'm close, and i'm not looking it up).

Also, if you know a little greek, you know jack chick is full of shit in his Death Cookie tract, which says that IHS on the cookie that catholics eat at communion stand for Isis, Horus, and Seb, egyptian gods, and that it's pagan worship to be a catholic. Sorry, Chick, but IHS are the first three leters of jesus in greek, iota-eta-sigma-upsulon-sigma (remember, indiana jones and the last crusade? "Jehova starts with an I"? Yeah, there is no J in greek, it was Iota, in both jehova and jesus).

But, look, here, i've done rattled off my head for ever about nothing.

Just suffice it to say, when you see demon, you don't have to think servant of satan, from the pits of hell, sent to torment the true believing christians. It's just a spirit, who may have the attitude of a prankster.

~Will

Re: Looks fine to me!

[Punk Walrus]

> > [and] has negative cultural, and religious
> > ramifications.

> No, it doesn't. It's a cartoon devil.

No, it's not. It's a series of daemons putting up a flag, reminicent of the famous photo of Iwo Jima. Check the links.

> It doesn't offend anyone. Really.

I don't know, if I was Japanese, I'd probably be offended. A lot of American soldiers killed a lot of Japanese. When it was all over there were only 250 Japanese prisoners out of the original 22,000 defenders of the island. The rest were killed. General Kuribayashi commited suicide (hari kari). The Marines lost 7,000 killed and 19,000 wounded. International conflict is not comfortable thing to talk about, and not a good idea for a world-wide logo.

Also, have you ever heard the fates of these soldiers in that famous photo? Three of the men were killed in combat within days of the flag raising. Not exactly inspiring for a logo, either.

> If it were hanging on a cross or wearing a
> turban, *then* maybe it'd need changing.

Cross, probably. Turban? A lot of cultures have turbans. What's wrong with a turban? Keeps your hair up, head shaded from the sun, is a symbol of wisdom, and a cool place to store your cobra...! No, wait, skip the last one.

Re:Looks fine to me!

[GypC]

The south is full of black people, and mostly we get along fine. Black people had a saying in the 60's, "Northerners love the black race, but can't stand black people. Southerners hate the black race, but get along with black people just fine."

Texas also has a lot of openly gay people. Haven't you ever heard the expression "steers and queers"? ;-) There is truth in it.

Another ignorant yankee...

Re:Looks fine to me!

[Asmodai]

Not really. A swastika is the symbol of an organization that verifiably eradicated six million jews and similar numbers of gay people, Romany gypsies, etc.

Bah, learn proper history before commenting. The swastika is a Hindu holy symbol and associated with Ganesh, the Hindu god of good luck/fortune. It is also highly used by the Buddhists in the world since the arms symbolise the chain of rebirth and death. The four 'L's are associated with Life, Love, Luck, and Light.

In the World War Adolf Hitler was smart enough to take an established symbol like the Indian swastika and mirrored it and made it a symbol for the Nazis to be proud of. He did the same to the Napolean Iron Cross.

*wishing people who take their collective political correct heads our of their political correct arses, not everything revolves around the west and the middle east*

Logo Suggestion

[Giant Ape Skeleton]

I think a penguin would be...
oh, wait. nevermind.

Re:wow

[Duty]

NetBSD's claim to fame is running on everything from your PC to a dead squirrel in a cardboard box.

It's not that they're devils ....

[binaryDigit]

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.

Re:It's not that they're devils ....

[tiluki]

Try explaining that to some people.

Apple, BSD, daemon processes... They just see their own association and fit it to whatever ideological conditioning they've been reared on, before propagating the next generation in the perpetual cycle of ignorance and fear...

Re:It's not that they're devils ....

[Imperator]

That site is a hoax, like Landover but subtle enough that most people don't figure it out. I can't find it anymore but on their "4KIDZ" page they had a peppered moth teaching about creationism. No real creationists would ever mention the peppered moth, unless they were trying to discredit the evidence. There are lots of other things that are just a bit too ridiculous to be real. That's not to say that real creationists aren't ridiculous, but they don't explicitly point out the hilarious consequences of their beliefs, like kangaroos in the Middle East. If you don't know any of these people it's easy to think this site represents their views, but it's just a little bit over the top.

Iwo Jima photo by Joe Rosenthal

[basingwerk]

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.

Re:Iwo Jima photo by Joe Rosenthal

[towzzer]

Acutally the flag raising was done twice right after each other, the first flag was very small so they decided to take it down and find a larger pole to put it on, as it was being put up the photographer 'Joe Rosenthal' snapped the picture as he was just coming to the top of mountain. Later , when the flag was fully raised, he took a posed picture. Of course the accidental picture was the one that became famous.

Re:wow

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Similarities, but not quite to Intel's Pentium

[deunan_k]

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!

Forget Beastie....

[sethadam1]

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.

Sympathy for the daemon

[k98sven]

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..

In contrast to the bashing

[Max Romantschuk]

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.

Politically correct NetBSD Logo

[Anonymous Coward]

Can be found here...

Wait . . .

[shystershep]

The successful logo will also have wide exposure

Wait a minute - this is NETBSD we're talking about here, right?

So I'm Fired...

[BSDevil]

...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.

Re:negative cultural, and religious ramifications?

[aallan]

Last I checked the US wasn't a theocracy...

When was the last time you checked?

Al.

An opportunity...

[pschmied]

...to raise awareness about one of the cooler OS projects out there shouldn't be wasted.

I know that the conventional wisdom is:

• FreeBSD is for servers
• OpenBSD is for firewalls
• NetBSD is for obscure hardware

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

Re:An opportunity...

[SteelX]

I've been thinking about checking out NetBSD's pkgsrc for quite a while. It sounds like a really cool idea. You seem to have experience with NetBSD and I was wondering if you could answer a question that I have been pondering for some time.

Would it be possible to use pkgsrc as the main package management system on a Linux box, say, Slackware? What I mean is, forget Slackware's package management system altogether and replace it with NetBSD's pkgsrc.

Re:devil?

[Artifakt]

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?".