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OO.org Selects Its Own Sea Bird

Elektroschock writes "A new mascot of the OO.org project was announced today: A crazy sea gull. I wonder whether it will help to convince office workers of Open Office. "Andrea [Maggioni]'s contribution is not only beautiful and effective but also illustrates the potential of young people to contribute importantly to real projects under the banner of Free and Open Source Software." Andrea, "whose cheerful drawing, of a fun-looking seagull holding a fish, plays on the "OOo" shorthand of OpenOffice.org"... ehemm, it's a crazy sea gull."

8 of 413 comments (clear)

  1. Pun on by ciroknight · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Migration? maybe?

    --
    "Victory means exit strategy, and it's important for the President to explain to us what the exit strategy is." G.W.Bush
  2. Re:Please note by pvt_medic · · Score: 5, Insightful

    thats good to hear, because while it is a nice picture and all. I dont think this is the logo that will get them international respect as an alternative to microsoft office.

    However i do applaud them for involving school aged children into this project and their efforts to bring open office to schools. This will not only save schools hundreds of dollars (more like thousands) but also will having children involved with the development of such a product has countless educational value.

    I tip my hat to them

    --
    30% Troll, 50% Underrated, 10% Interesting
    Score:5, Troll
  3. The "OK" sign the gull is making is obscene in EU by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The "OK" sign is another way of referring to the female genetalia in some countries, and is considered obscene, which could be a bit of an impediment to OO use in some countries.

    Maybe they should have researched this a bit more...

  4. Oh great by Dark+Lord+Seth · · Score: 5, Insightful
    Andrea receives a great prize of a web-hosting service for one year, 200 Mb of web space on a Linux server, with 50 IMAP/POP3 mailboxes (protected from virus and spam), unlimited aliases, one IP address, PHP/MySQL/PostGreSQL support, and the registration of an .it .com .net or .org domain name. The prize is donated by E4A, a Free Software based ISP that supports the OpenOffice.org community.

    That's a nice price, sure. But for a girl who's prolly still in high school or maybe even elementary school?

  5. Re:See the Other Submissions by orkysoft · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Okay, so I sinned and did RTFA. Here's a quote from the last paragraph, which is ROTFLMAO, IMHO.

    Context: case study of OOo being burned to CD in a school project.

    One of the students has suggested we try to get individuals and local organisations to sponsor individual disks and this is something we'll definitely be considering - Chris is already working on a draft letter to Bill Gates!

    It'll be a cold day in hell when Bill Gates will sponsor OOo for schools! That would go straight against his business strategy in so many ways...

    --

    I suffer from attention surplus disorder.
  6. We understand the qualifiers, but still... by roj3 · · Score: 5, Insightful
    >>1) This is just the mascot for OOOEdu, not OOo.
    >>2) It was a childs drawing, who won a competition.
    >>I think it's quite cute.

    The problem is, it doesn't matter if it's "just" the mascot for OOOedu -- it reflects on the entire OO.org brand. Unfortunately, it communicates "sloppy, stoned bird," rather than "whimsical kid-friendly software."

    The idea of using a kid's drawing is good, but as you see, the results leave you explaining it EVERY TIME ("see.. it was drawn by a kid.. see?). What about incorporating the feedback of kids? What about working with kids to come up with various themes? or having various schools vote on a selection of professional designs?

    Cute isn't going to win us (the open source software movement) any battles.

  7. Target audience? by antic · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Who's the target here? If kids are making the decision to roll out OO in schools, then by all means go with the demented bird, but if you're trying to sway Principals or MS-happy IT staff, then you might want to choose something that suggests professionalism, reliability, and easy for kids to use.

    The retarded bird says unprofessional, flaky, and unattractive.

    The competition was surely a great idea to get awareness up amongst kids, but I wouldn't run around with that bird as a letterhead to managers of schools and boards representing schools.

    --
    'Thats they exact same thing a banana wrench monkey.'
  8. Re:In my well paid opinion by Dr.+Evil · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The what?

    Guh-new Image Manipulation program?

    Guh-what?

    Guh-new, G.N.U.

    WTF?

    Guh-new's not Unix

    What's Unix?

    An Operating system, don't worry about it, it's the Guh-new Image Manipulation Program.

    That's stupid.

    No, it's great, check out www.gimp.org

    Haha. Nice try, that's a hardcore porn site right? I don't think I want to hang around with you anymore.

    I'm serious, it's a graphic program, it's great, it's written by free software devlopers. It's licensed under the GPL.

    The GPL?

    The Guh-new public license

    You're frightening me.

    Try the GIMP, it's not very good on Windows though, you should try it on Linux.

    I think I'll stick to Photoshop. There's a new version coming out. Check out this glossy book I picked up.

    I don't have to pay for my documentation.

    Where is it?

    www.gimp.org

    Ooooh Kaaay. I've got work to do now, please leave.