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Linux on a Magazine Cover?
romney wrote in to give us the scoop on an interesting opportunity: "I've been asked to design a cover for a high-end graphics magazine that shows Linux. I'm looking for suggestions on how you would graphically illustrate the ideas that are the basis for Linux. I really want the reader to get a visual understanding of Linux just by looking at the cover. What would you do? " Hint: It needs a penguin.
Thousands of nerdy looking people praying and
dancing around a golden pinguin????
perhaps a bit zynical, but not that far off
the truth....
I'd suggest reading Neal Stephenson's "In the Beginning Was the Command Line" for some ideas - I like his idea of the anarchic crowd in tents, RVs, Quonset huts, etc., all gathered to build tanks.
How about an "obvious artist type" holding a laptop like a paint palette, standing in front of a standard canvas on a rack (that thingie that holds a painting in progress - grin).
The computer screen has X running, with the GIMP logo up... He is dipping his paintbrush into the colors on the screen, implying use of GIMP to paint the "real-life" painting.
Mark Edwards
Proof of Sanity Forged Upon Request
Then, behind this scene/in the background you can put Gimp/KDE/Redhat/Debian/Caldera/etc logos that are slightly transparent/faded.
This will look sweet if done right.
I am dismayed to see that even to this day women are treated in such a disrepectful way. It is sad and discouraging that images such as these sets back years of progress in equality. As an outraged citizen, I would like to know where such a vile picture can be seen on the web, so that I may tape it on my computer to show the guys at the office an example of bigotry. I am keenly interested if it flagrantly displays a taut, tanned body and sexy, frilly exotic lingerie, especially in conjunction with hormone-pounding high-tech machinery. All in the name of righteous indigination, you understand. At any rate, perhaps someone may scan in this disreputable picture so we guys in the server room may educate ourselves and ponder on the negative effects of balantant stereotypes. In unspeakable rage- Derrick
sectioned partial render of Tux, i.e. 1 section wireframe, 1 section flatshade polys, 1 section gouraud shaded and blended polys (this section should be very high-poly, so as to look more polished than the previous areas; the top should look distinctly low-poly), then one section colored shaded, then one section textured. Side objects can include multiple users, with source on their monitors, and all connected to projectors, which are projecting the Tux image. This symbolizes many users are coming together to create Tux (and by analogy, Linux). Hope this helps, Kevin M. Lowe klowe1@purdue.edu
How about Tux painting? Or even Tux painging over windows? :-)
I can just see it, Tux with a goatee, a french cap, standing before a canvas with an easel holding a paintbrush and a pallette. If anyone makes such a drawing send me a copy for AboutLinux.com...
--------- Webmaster, http://www.cpureview.com and
That way, (almost) everybody's happy...you've shown that Linux *does* have a desktop (and a command line), a good mix of open & commercial software, and a cute mascot :).
An explanation of why something is bad or wrong does not necessarily have to include FUD. FUD tends to come about when you don't have enough legitimate gripes about something.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
"Well, Captain, it would be logical for the artwork to depict the strengths of Linux, in a way that was clear to the reader."
"What would you define as the strengths?"
"The strengths are - ease-of-use, support for a wide range of systems, hot-loadable drivers, stability, speed, rapid maintenance, flexibility and control."
"That's a lot to put on one cover picture. What would you suggest?"
"A surreal picture, of a person replacing a clock part with something from the engine of an old car, with the caption of 'this'll be good for another fifty years."
"Hmmmm.... That would be.... logical."
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
I think you should hook up with the guys on the Linux Image Montage Project and see what they could come up with to help out. That way, it would be open source. :-)
Of course Tux is sitting outside the cage labelled Linux which has has the bars bent open.
Ahh - My eye!
The doctor said I'm not supposed to get Slashdot in it!
I would second this and definitely emphasize the Internet somehow. In addition to the many people involved, we could not communicate as we have been able to and I don't think Linux would have grown as it has without it. This would also show that the growth of Linux has and is more of a worldwide effort.
----------------
"Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds." - Albert Einstein
Co-founder and designer at Music Nearby: http://musicnearby.com
they want the browsers to be compliant to open standards, how about the authors ;)
...but, if it says that (as it should) Linux is up and coming, but nowhere near as capable (graphically) as other systems, then you probably had best just go for something indicating that Tux has an artistic side. For example, Tux with a beret and a paint pallete painting something that looks suspiciously like the GIMP logo on his canvass - something to that effect. Or, you could put the MacOS logo on a pedestal, and have Tux painting a picture of it (MacOS being THE graphics OS, more or less).
Continuing this theme a depiction of a revolution of freedom and renaissance coming from Linux Users would represent Linux well. Grab your history books and check out all of the adventitious art. Such as the national revoltutions and wars. Linux is more than an operating system. Linux is a product of a free thinking community that knowns no limitation. Like others have said shown the community. Show their intention, passion, and vision. Stress important fundementals such as innovation, support, security, freedom and openness. These are the roots that Linux was built upon.
---------
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This space for rent. Call 1-800-SIGADVT to place your ad.
How about a cover which shows a window from a high end graphics app (like blender, if that counts as high end). Standing next to the window is Tux holding an palette of paints, and he (/she?) is reaching into the window to draw the super-detailed cool thing which is being rendered. So Tux is doing the rendering :)
:) holds a tile of raster graphics that he is about to put into the image of Tux being editted. For the 3D image being rendered/drawn by Tux, use a 3D tux, unless anyone has a better idea :)
:)
idea version 2:
I think it would be cool to take a real window dump from a graphics program, and leave the window borders in. Maybe even better would be to have a whole screen dump, showing a nice-looking desktop. Xfractint rendering a Mandelbrot fractal in one window, gimp in another window, editting Tux, and a large window covering parts of the others (so we know it is the important one) running blender. (or if you have access to some commercial super-cool program (like mentioned in LJ) use that). On top of the screen capture, draw a Tux standing on an xterm, and painting in the 3D window. Next to the Gimp window, another Tux (ooh, SMP
In response to all the suggestions to kick dirt at BG, keep in mind that this will be the cover of a high-end graphics mag. This is the domain of SGI and other Real Computer manufacturers, not Micros~1. The target audience is probably people who know what they are doing, and probably know all too well about NT.
Tux rocks. If you don't like Tux, then draw a better logo yourself. I admit, he is a bit pudgier than I'd like to see, but I can't draw worth a damn, so I don't complain. (except for that last self contradictory sentence
#define X(x,y) x##y
#define X(x,y) x##y
Peter Cordes ; e-mail: X(peter@cordes ,
If you're catering to a U.S. audience, getting thousands of little penguins drawn by oodles of volunteers and arranging them into the statue of liberty... fine enough that from a few feet it looks like the statue, but when held in your hands all the little tiny penguins drawn by thousands of volunteers are quite visible.
It all depends on what kind of resources are at your disposal.
My original thought was to do the same with a visual representation of the internet, but it's a stretch of a claim, and I just couldn't think of an image which would be fitting.
???
1. MS has not got much to do with design. Hell, MS has nothing whatsoever to do with design other than torturing those of us who have to import Word into Quark or something.
2. Adobe, while expensive, has earned it's place. PostScript is good. Photoshop is good. Illustrator is good. If anyone needs to be taken down a notch it's Quark.
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
Hey, it's about as stressful as those 'netslave' guys. It's a world of deadlines. Lots of deadlines.
I'm not trying to say that all of us are Knuth or anything. But none of the 100-150 or so designers I know are dumb about computers - after all 90% of dtp is computer-based now, and I can't think of anyone who prefered the old way, which still pops up a bit depending on how you do your comps.
The main thing about designers is that since computers are just a tool, a way to get what we want accomplished, people will often find some way of doing something and stick with it. I once worked in a shop where after ~15-20 years the DEC PDP-11 they had used for layout finally died. The designers there were expert PDP operators but were still learning the Mac. The PDP had worked, so why change? While I personally enjoy noodling around with computers, this is probably what you're encountering: people who don't give a crap how it works, as long as it does work and can do what they need.
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
Ho ho ho. I can guess that you're not a designer. I am, though.
Am I ignorant? No, I don't think so. I know a crapload about how my computer works, and I use windows and linux on a pretty regular basis, though not for work.
I, like most designers, am extremely technical. I _HAVE_ to be. Programming is mostly conceptual work - get a clear idea of what you're doing and then type a lot. But programmers can use a tty if they have to and so IMHO they have it lucky.
I have to pay attention to my color calibration; the mess of original files that have to get into the computer or adjusted so as to work well with others (slides, transparencies, photos, recreating lost originals, screened art...); font issues up the wazoo (I've probably memorized the appearance of a few thousand different faces by now); intercompatability between my software - Quark, PageMaker, Photoshop, Illustrator, Freehand - which is not just by vendor (Illustrator and Freehand HATE each other) but also version; maintain strict version control over the various files; preserve projects that can easily sit at a few hundred megs each for years and be able to get them working later, without pickled hardware or software; and output.
It's output that's a real killer. Changing from RGB to Lab to CYMK and Pantone colorspaces. Screening. Going over the films, by hand, with a lupe to make sure everything's perfect. Making the fscking imagesetter and RIP are working, which is easily the most annoying thing I have ever had to do - I could kill a certian imagesetter company's employees without remorse. Dealing with film processing, which is not quite as automated as I'd like. Thank god I don't have to strip or make plates though.
On top of all of this I have to be a good designer with an excellent sense of color, design, know the ins and outs of typography (like why Adobe deserves their status) as well as traditional paste up for comps and such.
And, because stuck up people like you tend to work as admins, I have to keep all the hardware running perfectly by myself, keep track of viruses, bugs in the many many programs we use, administer LANs and learn enough about AppleScript programming to automate what I can.
If I'm working in a print house (presently I am not) then 90% of the business of the company goes through me. Multimillion dollar presses sit idle if I'm not on time. Fortunately we have weeded out a lot of the PHBs in print, though the web is full of 'em.
So I end up doing three jobs: Designer, Computer Operator and Sysadmin.
I'm thanking god for MacOS X completely because it's based on BSD. I desperately want unix underpinnings for the Mac so that it won't be crash prone (which has more to do with flakey but unique software or a lack of maintenance than it does anything else). DPS will be very sweet.
Linux, while also attractive, simply doesn't have the kind of software I need (Gimp is not usable for print yet, and there are a lot of patents so it probably won't ever be AFAIK) or else I'd be happy to switch.
USB of course, other than for mickey mouse crap (keyboards, mice, tablets) is useless. Serious periperhals (scanners, some printers, disks) are SCSI. Firewire's nice, especially since it's hot-swappable (the biggest attraction for me) but I won't be using it for years, I'm sure.
So please don't go thinking that Mac users - particularly graphic designers are stupid. We're not. Having to deal with people like you, we can't be.
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
Actually it's only true if I were: 1. A programmer, which I am not (try as I might, I'm just not good at it) 2. A really damn good programmer (even rarer than #1) 3. Could access all of the proprietary information required for good graphics software (like patented color matching systems)
The point of my post was that designers are using Macs not because we're stupid - though there are always stupid people in every profession - but because Windows and Linux systems usually either don't offer what we want or offer too little to make changing systems attractive.
I'm not on a power trip (although design has many practical applications - like forgery ;), at least I don't think so. But I don't like it when people tell me that I and my bretheren are dumbasses for using a practical solution, especially if the person saying that is unfamiliar with what we do in the first place.
I'll tell you this, and this is a FACT, not opinion. Gimp, and Linux in general are really not useful for graphic designers.
Really this is less important for Linux because the underlying OS is just a thing for us. It's not important, because we're really concerned with the applications. If Linux could run my software I'd switch.
But the Gimp... non-graphic designers always wonder why we stick to Photoshop. The reason is because the Gimp is lacking in a number of key areas. Chief among these is that it has lousy color support.
Sure it can display RGB color. That's about the last thing I need. Lab is a very good color space and last I heard it wasn't supported. This may have changed but it's not the really critical one. CYMK is totally absent from the Gimp AFAIK, as well as support for Pantone. Nothing in this country gets printed, in color, professionally without being in either CYMK (or a subset thereof) or in Pantone or once in a jillion years Hexachrome. NOTHING. That's just how things are for little reasons like chemistry and the color spectrum.
This means that suddenly the Gimp is only useful for people making RGB or greyscale images. Very few people deal exclusively in those colorspaces. Web designers, while only concerned with RGB or greyscale output often have to convert other people's more complicated files and so there's little reason to adopt an incomplete solution just because it's there. Would you switch from Emacs (assuming you use it) to an editor without support for capital letters? Only if you're e. e. cummings.
Since the Gimp is not sufficiently attractive to draw people to Linux all by itself, let's look at what else Linux is lacking:
Most shops have a really large investment in typefaces. Thousands of dollars of typefaces. Typically in Mac PostScript format, which may not lend itself to conversion to something Linux can use. If not, that's bad because it's of critical importance that everyone have the same fonts (or be able to use them) for about the same reasons that it's good for people writing software to rely on standard libraries and APIs. Only more so.
The only layout program I know of for Unix is Framemaker, which is commercial and no longer being updated AFAIK. Plus it's more suitable towards books than single-page design, and is heavily weighted towards typesetting. TeX is for typesetting, not layout and while I'm told LaTeX has some simple layout functions it's probably not a good replacement for Quark.
Is there a good illo program for Linux? Something like Illustrator? I don't do vector when I can avoid it so I have not looked into this much. Still a vector program is an essential part of the desktop publisher's toolkit.
All of that stuff is critical. All of it is a problem for the designer who wants to use Linux exclusively. Since designers tend to not give a crap about the OS and just want tools that work (as I mentioned, I knew one shop that had been using a customized PDP-11 for ~15 years because that's what worked - at least until it couldn't be fixed) the Mac is a really attractive option. If standard commercial apps get ported over that will be much more of an inducement than the current offerings on Linux are.
Me, I like Linux, BeOS, Mac... but only one is good for work right now. I'm painfully aware of how old the MacOS is which is why I'm looking forwards to MacOS X (which is based on BSD). Get my stuff working on Linux and I'll use that. It's not even a matter of preference right now.
Mostly though I'm vocal on this subject because I just don't like ignorant bozos, no matter what OS they use, telling me that I'm an idiot even though I know what's up with the state of DTP and they don't. Non-designers have no right to talk to me that way.
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
How about a robotic penguin... Something where you another party is doin surgery on tux... It would ilustrate the ability for someone to really get under the hood of linux and change things... hmmm then there is the car motif... just a random musing...
hmmm a penguin working on his car???
---- Fight to protect your right to keep and arm bears! ummmm... ya I think that's right....
gnu = the gnu gimp = wilbur linux = tux postgres = that elephant thing gnome = the foot kde = the dragon there must be dozens ... I think that would make good artwork; the use of mascots is something that cleanly separates the Free Software crowd. Also, the "linux movement" is more than just the linux kernel.
support gun control: take guns from cops
You can see it Here. But the pic in the actual tarball looks better. Sorry for drooling.
support gun control: take guns from cops
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
You should have a hundred people standing together, wearing different coloured clothes, so that from a distance it looks like a picture of Tux. In other words, a crowd of people formed into the shape of a penguin.
-- Ed Avis ed@membled.com
I'm seeing a Tux, sitting crosslegged, a hammer+chisel in his hands, looking at Michaelangelo's (sp!?) David.
that cute KMFMS logo
--collect information, distribute information--
*cough* I, uhh.. have copyrighted the "..." subject line on slashdot. Please discontinue your use of it at once. =)
--
general idea design idea
basically the power of Linux is the open nature of the code, the distributed peer review, the flexibility of the development style and the wide range of people in the community. That's the secret to Linux... the community. the many hands of the community make lite work of the otherwise daunting.
so then... here's my idea for the cover....
some various details:
I know there are more details floating in my head... but it's been a long week and I'm tired... I'll post others tommorow if the thread's alive.
Tux wearing a Kevlar "FUD" Vest, avoiding shot from a "very rich geek".
Or, Tux or Linus climbing out of a computer monitor while "someone" tries to tell you to "pay no attention to the OS behind firewall".
Or, dipict some companies trying to hold back the flood of open source software while others ride the wave. I think I particularly like this one. I'm picturing Tux wearing a red hat, carrying a green inflatable SUSE dinosaur (if that's what it is), and throwing a Debian logo marked frisbee, riding a surf board. Supporting OSS companies could be riding the wave too.
Ryan
...for whatever else you show.
I agree that you need a penguin on the cover, but why not go with something other than the "generic" penguin that linux is recognized by?
Just a thought, I'm getting tired of that same old bird over and over.
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"They misunderestimated me." --George W Bush, Nov. 6, 2000
Perhaps the Linux Montage would show the best aspects of Linux. Just a thought..
Ita erat quando hic adveni.
Just put a picture of Linus on the cover. That seems to be what passes for innvoative design over at Linus Journal... errrrm... Linux Journal.
by Mike Buddha -- Someday the mountain might get him, but the law never will.
First who is your audience? (who is the magazine geared towards) "High-End Graphics" could mean many things, but unless this is magazine is geared towared the people doing scientific modeling and such I'm going to assume that this magazine is geard toward "artists" that are using computers as their tools. Most of these people don't know what "Tux" is and don't care what is "under the hood". They are more concerned with how it will allow them to do thier job with less problems. I would focus on representations of work flow, efficiency, and stability. Helios is a company that makes graphic environment workflow solutions that now has a linux port. Check them out and see what they have to say about their product.
Linux as a publishing solution on the workstation side is still in its infancy (with the exception of high density manuals and long document (read Tex), but would excel as a server solution.
If this magazine also has a readership that is in the animation industry, mabye some representation of the clustering solutions may be a an option you want to look at.
Do a brainstorming session with word association.
stability=solid=stone=granite=quarry=.......
efficency=......
cooperation=.....
After a little session of this you will see words that will guide you in choosing metephorical representations of what you are trying to say.
good luck and happy designing.
How about "small world after all" theme with
everyone holding hands, or 1000's of monkeys on
pcs spewing code, or a zillion little stupid penguins on pcs, or (laugh) the communist manifesto with Karl Marx/Eric Raymond, etc...
Are you creative or no? Its art, right?
Do you really WANT art by commitee?
I'd be kewl to have big open windows with curtains blowing that looked out over a sea of code and a sky of www. Maybe have that as the image in a penguins eye and show only that 1/2 of it's head. I'd for sure make the penguin the background somehow. I'd go with a Zeus like end user posing at their computer as they play Q3 in the foreground. Maybe splash some Gimp, Gnome, KDE, etc around the edges of the scene.
At what price learning? At what cost wisdom? The price is a man's peace of mind, and the cost is his life.
A Globe labeled "The Internet" sitting on top of a pillar labeled "Linux".
1s and 0s swirling around the surface of the globe and streams of 1s and 0s on bolts of lightning streaming from the globe to the pillar.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
Some of them, anyway. Why not put some of Gimp's art on there? Maybe a screenshot of Linux in action too.
Or go for some abstract look portraying openness. But if it's a graphics mag, then we need to show off Linux's eye candy.
send flames > /dev/null
Only 'flamers' flame!
I picture a open fountain, gushing water
mixed with a torrent of punctuation marks
(heavy on the semicolons and the curly braces,
with some bars, slashes, hypens, angle
brackets, etc). The source is open, get it?
If you want, you could have a penguin swimming
in the fountain. You could also add some other
figures, like the FreeBSD demon and so on.
(My inclination would be to take it easy on
the cutsey stuff, though.)
You can change the slant by turning it from a
fountain to a kitchen sink, or a fire hydrant.
Drowning Bill Gates under the torrent is an
option.
Floating a boat in the stream is another option.
Linus torvalds at the helm?
IE has a nice feature.
:-)
I have no clue why it's not turned on by default.
Open your Internet Options, go to Advanced and select "Browse in new process" for IE4, and "Launch browser windows as separate processes" for IE5.
Once you do that, the browser detaches itself from the OS and you can kill it without killing anything else.
This tip is brought to you by the site admin of PCTIPS.com
--
Leonid S. Knyshov
Network Administrator
Leonid S. Knyshov
Find me on Quora
Jimi's strat was a right-handed instrument. He flipped the nut re-strung it, and played it "upside down."
I'm being anal, aren't I?
Above the castle, dark skies, thunderbolts etc, promoting the evil, are visible. (For ideas, see the Iron Maiden album "Killers").
The almost only thing visible thing of the castle are the Large, Fierce Walls surrounding it, with the silhouette of Our Great Enemy (Bill) in a window of the highest tower, maybe counting lots of money. In the middle are a pair of Iron Gates, through which line after line of cloned (or at least identically looking) windowz user can be sighted. On the tower, a very torn, dark and dirty flag wawes in the wind. The flag is - of course - the Windows flag... :-)
Behind the lines, in the celler of the castle is a small window visible, through which a torture chamber is visible. In the chamber, the silhouette of Duke (the Java symbol) hangs side by side with a penguine and a human.
Outside of the castle, the sun is shining, a rainbow is visible in the distance, the meadows are green, butterflies are flying and everyone are happy. "Everyone" are of course some Penguins, each being an individual, most occupied with their own hobby (painting, playing an instrument (with someone selling tickets for the show), writing on a scroll, examining a chart on a computer screen, talking on a cellular phone), but some are helping each other or are involved in a discussion, or listening to a lecture.
This is my main idea of a theme, promoting the freedom, individualism and friendship amongst Linux users, comparing it to the "slavery" and strictly business-without-afterthought-on-the-impact-of-the -individual-users-or-professionals idea of the extremely commercialized windows business.
Of cource it will require some afterthougth on which details to ommit to be able to display the main "theme", even though more background details will make it more fun for us non-Windows fans to watch. :-)
Dustpuppy
(or is that two?...)
Open source means never having to say thank you.
Just show tux crapping on a couple of MS and Apple logo's.
Steve's Computer Service, Hobbs, NM
Have ol Tux reaching out of the monitor to shake the hand of the user. I think that best describes the relationship between Linux and the user.
photosMy Photostream
Have a cover of the GIMP Mascot drawing a target on Adobe's Logo. Even better when Paired w/ a Gimp article. If you don't think a target is shocking enough, you could have him doing a very unclean act to it.
Another Idea - A Tux penguin with a Rocket Launcher from Quake III: Arena. Nothing yells 'HIGH END GRAPHICS' like Quake3.
Kagenin
"All warfare is based on deception."
Sun Tzu, "The Art of War"
Yeah, right. Everybdoy agrees on which editor is best of course :-)
Although not nessecarily what you may be looking for. Some of those magaznie readers may like it. A picture of Tux on a ladder climbing up into clouds (or something). Have a little SGI type logo in the ladder (seeing as how SGI is high end graphics and is helping linux). Then have a horde of people helping hold the ladder up. So with RedHat's, some are lizards, some are umm curly q's, I think you get the idea. Actually might as well carve some Intel, Alpha, AMD logos on the ladder too.
Of course this might not be what you are looking for cuz it might say that Linux isn't there yet. But then again Linux isn't. Nor will it ever be. Someone will always add something to it.
-cpd
I'm a vermont town of 15k people (going to bennington college) and the local news shop carries Linux MAgazine (though no linux journal in site) So odd.
Still looking forward to maximumlinux. http://www.maximumlinux.com/
when Push Comes to Shove
I've been seeing this animated groovin' pengiun wearing sunglasses. It's raytraced. Make it a bunch bigger and then put a special paper cover on the 'zine that has that ridged plastic animation effect like the toys that come in cracker-jacks. So you can tile the cover from side to side and watch the penguin groove. Cool and retro.
This is my signature. There are many signatures like it but this one is mine..
I'll add my support the reply above. The GIMP is a far, far cry from being anywhere near as good as Photoshop.
Yes, the GIMP is neat and free. Script-fu is brilliant. But if you think the GIMP's interface is better than Photoshop's you've probably only seen Photoshop on Windows. The fault there is Windows not Photoshop. On a Mac, Photoshop is still far superior to anything else -- especially the GIMP.
I like the GIMP and use it at home. However, a professional graphic artist -- who needs to do pre-press, who needs complementary vector graphics tools, who needs to work efficiently and intuitively -- would never get by with the GIMP/Linux.
But for god's sake, whatever you do, don't go with a simple, tasteful design that subtly conveys professionalism.
Doctors amputate Turkish earthquake survivor's arm [This story contains video]
"Whatever happened to fair use?"
-- Duff-Man
Have a background, or a light overlay, of the kernel source (or, a small hunk of it.) Showing whatever graphics, maybe a busy X desktop with the GIMP and other 'neat' apps open, over a background of the source.
After all, the apps and stuff are all there because it's open source. Everything neat about GNU/Linux is because it's open source. So make the source a prominent part of the picture.
If it was done well, it would show up fairly well on the solid colors, and be lost in the details. Enough to let people see it and recognize it (oh, source code... good idea) without dominating the picture and annoying the PHBs.
A million penguins typing on a million networked computers.
A garland, around the shield, of woven coaxial and 10BaseT cable with connectors dangling down?
Put Linus' Doctorate mortarboard on his head?
With the number of animals used as logos, why not make a zoo or a circus, and have users walking around, pointing, showing their children, sketching/taking notes (on laptops), feeding the animals, have Linus Torvalds as the friendly zookeeper, and various other zookeepers (programmers) taking care of the animals (hint, hint: open source), and maybe have a big entrance gate "outlining" the whole scene, so that it's like, the reader of the magazine is invited in... :)
I would buy that magazine just for the cover.
What magazine is this for, anyway?
Then there are some twists -- like throwing in how this is pulling away from the corporate philosophy of profit, and moving towards the philanthropic philosophy of most members of this community
The penguin is an idol -- it's a nice single-symbol entity that Linux is reflected in. But it does not portray much real information about what Linux is.
It's all about people. Not to get wierd on you :), but I believe that Linux is about giving power to people. Linux is about rebellion and defiance, an anathema to corruption (speak not of it getting corrupted itself) and a way to perpetuate good technology, in the face of technological and economic and marketing forces working against it.
It's a philosophy. It is poetic justice.
I saw a poster years ago about the next
generation of computers.
It was like a 3d bar chart comparing the US to
Japan in the race. The US bar was much higher. People (men) where drawn on top of each bar.
The Americans where fighting each other, like
king of the hill stuff. The Japanese where standing on each others shoulders.
Funny, haven't thought about that picture in years.
I would not feature Tux at all. It may be a cute mascot of sorts as others have mentioned, but certainly it will not communicate to the masses what Linux is about. It might make your task much more difficult, but the Penguin is a no-brainer easy way out.
It's great that the penguin has been established as a mascot for Linux and it should be used whenever possible. Marketing strategists spend lots of money on coming up with a symbol people are gonna recognize. That doesn't mean Tux has to be the center of attention on such a cover, and it would be great if not the exact same image of Tux would be used over and over again as it is the case (look at the ads of a Linux-related magazine and you'll find a gazillion copies of that EPS(?!) file). However, people with a computer background will recognize the penguin-Linux connection immediately, and covers are about getting the attention of someone looking at it. You can hardly start elaborating on Linux' stability etc. on the cover of a magazine! If there is a cute penguin, alright, that's a beginning. Maybe the network aspect could be emphasized somehow.
or walking out of it. Make the house be your typical suburbia image. Illustrate graphically that Linux has come from the Virtual Garages of thousands of worldwide developers. "The Next Big Thing" is overused but text to that effect would be nice. "The Ensuing Large Object" or sum such.
+&x
You know, there are so many window managers out there, you don't want to get slammed for endorsing one over the other.
;-)- -------------
How 'bout a plain, command-line session of VI, world's most exquisite "word processor." That always makes *me* think of Linux, anyway.
--------------------------------------------
Hmmm. Playgeek? Pictures of naked women endorsing computer products. On second thought, scratch that... it's really disturbing and makes me feel bad that I thought of it. I've been bad, and should be punished.- -------------------
--------------------------------------
I like the idea of having penguins, but we are people (despite what some of you may think ;-)
:-)
How about a bunch of people at a rally. The shot is facing the stage, so all you see is a bunch of heads crowded together, hands in the air, general commotion.
On the stage is a Peguin, perhaps behind a podium, or even better yet, in front of some huge flag and wearing a uniform (sorta like in Patton).
Well?
-peace
Maybe on of these ideas would suffice...
I'm thinking less of how one captures the software's mojo in an image, than how to capture that of the GNU/Linux community. Much like the late Power Computing's extremist advertising for their Mac clones ("You can take my Mac when you pry my cold, dead fingers from the mouse", and so on).
1- The image of Tux cloned and overlaid into what looks like a legion of penguins marching in a column. Headline reads, "It Takes a Budget of Trillions to Hold Us Back." (Possibly "Marketing Budget of Billions"). Highly representative of the legions of GNU/Linux faithful. Bound to piss someone off.
2- The image of Tux, inside a circle formed from the logos of industry heavyweights (IBM and so forth) who have recently jumped on the bandwagon, adding momentum. A little too obvious, but it's highly representative of GNU/Linux's move from finge to mainstream OS.
3- The _most_ obvious thing would be a screenshot of sorts. Picking the X-Window manager is going to be tough, but KDE or GNOME would seem the most topical (GNOME especially). A focus on interface niceties like menus and icons is necessary, as is multimedia (read: Netscape, XMMS, and GIMP). Maybe a nice Office suite. A transparent terminal window with the ridiculously-long system uptime, maybe. *How* to fit this all onto a magazine cover is outside of the scope of this posting! =:)
A penguin, a gnu, and Linus Torvalds smoking cigars and playing poker.
-- The Sage does nothing, and nothing is left undone. --Lao Tzu
How about a Ferris wheel with a distro logo in each seat and linus at the control lever with a penguin behind him about to bite him on the butt.Various other logo characters could be trying to climb over the fence and up the side of the wheel while it's moving. The circus motif is rife with applicable character sources? Suggestions for clown? ringmaster? human cannonball?
How about a Ferris wheel with a distro logo in each seat and linus at the control lever with a penguin behind him about to bite him on the butt.Various other logo characters could be trying to climb over the fence and up the side of the wheel while it's moving. The circus motif is rife with applicable character sources: suggestions for clown? ringmaster? human cannonball?
Being drawn in the GIMP with other programs in the background.
How 'bout involving a cathedral and a bazaar?
Maybe pictures of them being edited in the GIMP.
Or is just a screenshot lame?
-Frank
A mountain of embattled coders, keyboard/swords held high in celebration atop piles of defeated Windoze boxes, and at the very pinnacle of the mountain, an over-the-top-Conan-looking Penguin, CD distro held high, the sun shining off it... All surrounded by peasants, gleefully picking up free CDs :)
This is going to be labeled flamebait, but the Gimp is not superior to Photoshop--nonexistant/poor support for process color, color calibration, pantone, etc. Don't get me wrong--Gimp is a great image editor, but before I can use it for production, it needs to be more pre-press friendly.
(The reminds me, wasn't someone porting Gimp to Be? I haven't used Be in so long, I've lost touch...)
Just my 2px...
----
Am I the only one who thinks Microsoft is a misnomer? Perhaps Macrosoft would be a better fit?
We're really "with it" aren't we? I run Linux at, at work (my doing) and I recommend it. But I own a Mac (WHOA!) Am I some kinda WEIRDO? Well yes, but that's not the point. Point is plenty of people don't give a damn what their computer run or how it works - so what? Mac is a fine computer, it CAN run Linux, mine runs MacOS X Server (part time) and I think it's great. People like you HURT our cause - I don't want to see a Linux only universe, where could we get ideas from?
As to the cover (the purpose if this) why not a Really nice graphic (of something) and simply the words: "Created with Linux". Or a screen shot of GIMP with the screen slightly unfinished and people (some in t-shirts & jeans, some in pyjamas, some in boxers) finishing it. Just an idea.
Focus on that. Thousands of people all working together, no giants. Maybe an aerial shot of a LOT of people in a field, collectively in the shape of a penguin.
Shouldn't be too hard to do with graphics composition, should it?
Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
I saw a great picture of a cute chick, wearing ladies briefs, standing in front of a Cray. The panties said Linux on the band.
You could have the code of the teardrop hack "tattooed" on her tight little body.
Eve Fairbanks says I drive a hybrid!LOL
A penguin rampant, using a chalkboard eraser to wipe out the blue screen of death. That sums it up neatly, don't you think?
"I will take the Ring," he said, "though I do not know the way."
While Sheriff Adobe, Microsoft and Apple hold up a struggling graphic artist.
"Arghh, take from the poor graphic artists and give to King Gates!"
George
You mean that old claymation cartoon with the dog and the boy.
"Hey Goliath, do you think we should write a competitor to Windows?"
"Aw gee, Davey, I don't know, is that right?"
George
idea:
a nice rendering of the tux penguin in a lady liberty stance holding your favorite distro's box instead of the tablet.
Not sure what to place the torch with.
Any ideas?
Lady liberty represents stability, reliability, and freedom.
just a suggestion
----- --- - - -
jacob rothstein
jacob rothstein reed college
To me, and for people unfamiliar with Linux, I don't think Linux's strengths is adquately described by a penguin or any other anecdotal picture. What I would like to show people about linux is that it is amazingly sound, and stable, but at the same time has a humongous bevy of fervent supporters, programmers/coders, contributers, debuggers...a rich community. I think the community needs to be stressed. People don't USE Linux, the community GAINS people.
I don't know maybe a slide-procession showing a sheet of paper with some diagrams, code, cookie crumbles and coffee. The next slide is a PC with a console prompt. The next slide is a depiction of a vast global network superimposed with Q3 screenshots, productivity apps, web browser, etc.
Sort of cartoon like, showing the community culture and how it made Linux come to fruition.
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
I threw it together about 4 months ago.
http://www.beachdogsoftware.com/tux-bong3.png I threw it together about 4 months ago.
Show a penguin in that room in the Emerald City before the great and powerful OS, which would look just like the great and powerful (and scary) Wizard of OZ. The penguin would be looking behind the curtain at the little man pulling all the levers and turning all the knobs. What is the picture illustrating? That when you understand the concepts behind and OS, programming it isn't so intimidating (i.e. Open Source). Maybe put a sign on the booth that says, "source code."
All the creatures will die, And all the things will be broken. That's the law of samurai. (Jubai, 1605)
But WAIT. Off in the distance, near that daark and forboding mountain. . . the RED MOUND. . . thousands of evil Denizens pouring out of the DREAD GATES of HELL, er, I mean, BILL!
But WAIT AGAIN! The good GNUs are taking up arms! The PENGUIN RALLIETH THEM FORTH! Armageddon? Is this the FINAL BATTLE? Is that the VOICE of the ELDER GOD DOJ raining from the HEAVENS?
The DENIZENS RUSH FORWARD, to CRUSH the lowly ones! But see how their kludgey swords BREAK! See how they CRASH! Our Stalwart Heroes Fight On!
The battle RAGETH STILL!
Put that on the cover. :-)-~
-Omar
Tux giving Bill Gates a good spanking is the obvious choice. I think having bill gate's lilly-white ass getting enthusiastically caned by the penguin is the only really appropriate way to illustrate anything linux-related.
I gots ta ding a ding dang my dang a long ling long
Capture an X windows Desktop with the following image being created with the Gimp. Tux is chained to a wall in a dark and depressing dungeon. The chains that bind him are made up of the micrsoft windows logo and the apple logo. Tus has just broken free and the little windows and apple logo links are falling to the floor.
Or Tux is standing at the top of a bunch of steps (if there are any buildings in Redmond that fit this description that's be a plus for anyone who recognized it) with a huge throng of people below cheering. It's a nice sunshiny day and Tux is tosssing out free copies of Debian, Redhat, Suse, Caldera etc.
Or Tux is trying desperately to push his way through a bunch of evil-looking guys in dark suits who're holding him back to get to the families, kids, etc. on the other side while wearing a Santa Claus suit with a bag full distros. The guys holding him back should be riot police with a microsoft logo on them and Tux should be almost free of them. There could be black microsoft helicopters flying above Apple tanks etc.
You need to have a penguin sitting at a computer desk in the workplace. This penguin needs to have on headphones with music blaring and tennis shoes that are not tied. Behind the desk, on the wall, is a dart board with Bill Gates at the primary target and the flights on three arrows are the logos for RedHat, Caldera, and Suse. Also on the wall is a frame with needlepoint in it that says "Gnome sweet Gnome".
On the desk there needs to be a large coffee cup with "Open Source Rules!" on it that is sitting right next to a Dreamcast game machine. Oh, and don't forget to put Slashdot's home page on the computer monitor.
Just a few things I brainstormed about (way too much coffee today).
A freak and lovin' it!
I'd suggest a large room with a very large PC (relative to the penguins) being tinkered on "under the hood". Some penguins would be in the room looking at long computer printouts, other penguins would be standing next to penguins connected to the internet, some penguins would be changing ROM's. etc. Basically a large group activity showing collaboration, R&D, and overhaul.
Remember those Peanuts cartoons where Lucy yanks the ball away from Charlie Brown at the very last moment? AAARRRGH!!!
I can envision Tux pulling the ball away from a distraught Bill Gates... makes for a good visual metaphor, IMHO.
I've got it. Two bikini-clad penguins rubbing suntan lotion on Bob Young as he sips a margarita.
There are lots of good ideas here for the main focus of the cover art.
Here's an idea for the background of the cover. Have different types and and configurations of "Tuxen" carrying out varried tasks and functions.
For example a gaggle of Tuxen representing a Beowolf cluster; a Tux working with Apache to hand out "pages"; little tiny Tuxen diving into PDA's, set-top boxes, cell-phones, and medical equipment; a tired looking Tux handing files and printing stuff for Windoze 95/98/NT clients, etc...
You get the idea.
--aj
The Linux image montage project
http://linux.remotepoint.com/
I'm not sure how the limp people feel about
it getting used directly on a cover, but I
imagine a nice E theme with one of the LIMP
pre-release images open in a Mozilla window, a
Gimp, and a few other things up.
The great thing about LIMP is that it conveys
how all the various independant (Linus's kernel,
BSD and GNU utilities, the contribution of the
verious hardware and commercial distro vendors)
contribute to the whole, which is bigger than
the sum of it's parts.
Perhaps Tux could stand there holding a door open for the viewer, behind the OPEN door could be something that looks like code...
...at KMFMS and on a french Linux site.
--- Sueños del Sur - a webcomic about four young siblings
A giant Tux, in space, sitting on the Earth, like its a penguin egg ready to hatch. Ooo, I like that one. Maybe you can use one of those famous 'whole earth' photos.
Tux and the Gates and Jobs holding up three identical pictures with their respective computers in the background. Under the photos you can list out Labor cost, Software cost, OS costs,etc...
Bah, If I had my way it would be Tux taking a flamethrower to Redmond, which is why I'd make a terrible graphic designer.
If the Linux community(myself included) doesn't focus on an image, Linux will find itself running on computers in houses with Betamax VCR's... Don't discount how important an image is.
SpamapS -- Undernet #Linuxhelp
How 'bout a bar slut?
:)
Free to use and open to all
Thousands of people ooing and aahing over a huge pile of shit on an elevated tower.
Every time I try and picture this I crack up.
Hah!
The penguin is nice, but it doesn't really tell you anything about Linux. (Does linux need a cold room to work?) You need something that illustrates it's features and or it's versatility.
:)
Show something somewhat abstract looking, like a small network diagram, with an overlapped screen shot of the GIMP working on a colorful photo. Throw in some command line stuff showing server configuring and it's Un*x like style, then show some clips of a word processor and a browser displaying a nice web page. Then top it off with a tad of 3D images, in a freely available modeller, or some such, and throw all that together into a beautiful peice of artwork. Show off features, rather than just a penguin. (If you put Tux in, throw him one of the screen shots, like an embedded graphic in the word processor or something.)
Well, those are my ideas. If you need any help, don't hesitate to e-mail me.
There are some other decent utilities, such as blender and xpovray that you might think about as well.
How about a herd of penguins tearing down a large coperation?
How about a penguin in the classis thinker pose that is being assembled by hundreds of small people?
A penguin standing behind Bill Gates bent over...
penguinicide... when jumping out a window just won't do.
I think you should have Tux doing something nasty to the MS Office mascot.
I'm at work where I'm required to use Windoze95 and Internet Exploder (no Linux isn't an option here). I've tried to view that page three times now. I get a little bit of it and then IE5 freezes (locked solid). I end-tasked it twice and it did the same thing. The third time, it brought down the whole OS. Luckily everything was saved (you learn to do that alot on Win95).
I'll look at it tonight on my Linux machine.
1. Something showing "openness". Possibly the open part of the cover could be the background of the cover.
2. The thinker. `nuff said about that
3. A globe. You know what Linus says, "World domination" :)
4. A brain. Could possibly go with the thinker statue.
OR:
A large picture of a penguin holding the earth in its (flippers|hands|wings).
Keep micros~1 out of it though. It's not needed anymore. Really :)
Sosumi. just kidding. DONT!
i regret to inform you that i have patented the method of copyrighting subject lines. please contact me so that we can work out an agreement to license your use of my patented technology.
-=Best Viewed Using [INLINE]=-
Use the text of this discussion! It's open source graphic design!
Mmm, nummy.
-=Best Viewed Using [INLINE]=-
If you can get your hands on the rights to http://rio.dhs.org/penguin.html, I think that would be great. You can't argue that it doesn't "Show Linux".
-=Best Viewed Using [INLINE]=-
A big picture of Tux would certainly be inappropriate. However, having a cover-sized shape of Tux, but filled with the said types of graphics would be great. Tux has to be there, but it has the be in the background or subtle. Draw an outline of Tux, being sure to make the shape recognizable, but...graphics depicting the personal and free elements of Linux inside would be fabulous :) Good luck..do us proud.
why not just a screenshot...
of gnome and e
and of course have.. xbill presant.
and maybe gimp open... and also
gqview viewing pictures of sarah michelle geller.
ERROR: Keyboard not attached. Press F-1 to continue.
Top down view on a three-lane highway:
CmdrTaco and Hemos are with about eight people in a 1969 Dodge Dart convertible (with a penguin on the hood) speeding down the left lane. They're passing a 40 year old man in a suit standing, staring at his "Windows Logo" bearing Lotus that's crashed into the guardrail abutting the slow lane.
And, Stallman is pulling his moped over to hand the "suit" a copy of Debian...
-Mike
Way Cool! How about the penguin in the foreground surrounded by free (gnu) stones of various distributions of Linux and free (gnu) quality applications (gimp, etc.) slinging a copy of linux at the various hardware and software vendors who surround a goliath sized Microsoft, covered with ugly bugs being hit and falling down. Just what came into my mind :).
I think an open box stenciled in, with a penguin peeking over the edge, is the smart choice.
The penguin could be reading a book of C code.
Shockwave has its place, just like AOL -- if you can find a way to duplicate its capabilities with existing web standards, please enlighten me. I'm not much of a Shockwave user, though I sometimes pay that bowling game at shockwave.com to kill time at work.
If there is anything more evil than Satan himself, it's JavaScript. In the case of Shockwave, it's pretty necessary and that's the way it goes -- if you don't like it, don't use it (just like AOL).
--
E2 IN2 IE?
Have tons of windows, top should should it using more memory than it has and uptime should be years.
Disclamier: I have no understanding of visual design principles, so I don't know whether this would be effective in terms of balance etc...
but...
how 'bout something along the lines of n hackers co-operatively adding to/ fixing/colouring in/copying a freely distributable illustration of Tux?
An enormous penguin, rendered with ASCII in various colors, parts of the statue are unfinished at certain points, allowing one to glimpse Linus-faced figures inside, frantically typing at (obviously mouse-less) terminals.
Around the statue, masses of mindless /.ers kowtow and offer sacrifice...
A tunnel is shown being dug underneath the idol, with Gates-faced sappers readying dynamite charges.
At one side, a puzzled user is being interviewed by a reporter, asking "...but does it run WordStar?"
Any coincidence is just a resemblance ;-)
I think that the most important thing that you should incorporate should be GIMP. Why? There are several reasons.
Superiority. GIMP is better than Photoshop, mainly because of things like Script-Fu.
Ease of Use. GIMP is much easier to use than Photoshop.
Attractiveness. GIMP is capable of making extremely beautiful graphics.
Freedom. Remember that the spirit and point of Open Source is freedom. Freedom to see the code, freedom to use it, and freedom to change it. GIMP can only get better.
Right now, GIMP is one of the best things that Linux has going for it (besides Apache), and it is definately the most user-friendly program on the OS.
Brad Johnson
Advisory Editor
Brad Johnson
Do they really think that a national magazine would allow this on it's cover? MS is not the only OS out there. People never mention the other OS's like Solaris, Irix, AIX, Be, etc.
It's not in the best interest of the community to bash other OS's. It's in the best interest to feature the ideas that make Linux different and unique.
As for all the people out there that want "babes" on the cover. Go take "Advertising 101". Remember that there are more women in the world then men and we don't want to alienate them as a user base or more importantly in this context, as a magazine subscriber.
How about tux with a transparent skull and code inside - maybe colums of digits like that effect from the Matrix.
How about something like a caricature of Gates (and other well known closed-source ppl) with arms wrapped protectively around a poorly wrapped gift, showing unwillingness to share, even though what they got ain't that great. Amidst them all, perhaps pushing the others out of the way, is Tux with a shiny, nicely wrapped present held out toward the reader. Perhaps marching behind/alongside are some other OSS mascots, to show that we're all in it together but Linux sort of leads the way (in many ppl's minds it does).
Hope this helps spark an idea.
CT
Constitutionally Correct
How bout that damned penguin being skewerd bye the FreeBSD Daemon!! But seriously if it is for a graphics mag, not an internet mag as most of these responces seem to think try a well known high end graphics worstating with "Tux" on the screan (an SGI with that flat panel would be a good choice)
for a graphics magazine cover -
Picture of a woman or man standing in the Southwest desert on a clear day, carving a large Tux out of wood or some material. All this is imprinted on the screen of a SGI workstation, in the Gimp. The same artist is at the workstation editing this image.
This outlines the openness, flexibility and power of Linux in the graphics world.
Plus it'll look cool.
*** DRINK MORE COFFEE ***
A stylized mean looking Tux wiping his butt/feet with the Microsoft flag? ;) Althoguh I agree with whomever said that using Tux is probably the easy way out. How about an Egghead shopping cart full of software all with big price stickers that say $0.00 or FREE!
a design of pengiun with a trace of Hellblazer. Example. it sure is cool. it almost rival the bsd deamon thingies.
don't tell me that you graphic designer do not know how to do it. g.d do not need to know arts...you just need to exploit one.
heck! let me do it.
--
You're a cartoon of rebel! You're all like exaggerated version of yourself! - Gerard Jones
How about a group of penguins collaborating to build an igloo. Thru the opening of the igloo, you can see binary numbers/sample code. In the very distant background, you can have a collage of skyscrapers.
(Penguins are building a community outside of the mainstream/cities, working together to build cool technology.)
Earlier someone advanced the idea of a penguin holding the planet in
:)
it's wings. This is a good idea; It illustrates the mascot and
conveys a World Domination theme, and provides an opportunity to
create an image with impact.
There is something important missing in this theme however. It misses
the freedom aspect of Linux and Open Source. Perhaps this could be
introduced through a traveling aspect; `Tux on a rocket.' Tux, the
world held high above on one wing, staring intently into the oncoming
future.
Anyhow, you asked.
Maw! Fire up the karma burner!
Linux was created by a thousand people, most of whom have never and will never meet each other. This is what makes linux so damn cool. Illustrating this concept could be done in many ways. consider: A number of heads facing away from each oher connected in some way. perhaps by streams of energy or something. have you ever seen the norman rockwell painting "freedom of speech"? appeared on the february 20, 1943 saturday evening post? It's got a real community feel to it, basically it consists of of a man standing up speaking his mind while his community looks on. This idea, that Linux is a community effort is the sort of thing I think that you want to convey. Have a picture of Linus and Tux standing on Steve Job's and Bill Gates heads. The more blood here, the better. Have a picture of Cindy Margolis and Soledad O'Brien having a water fight wearing cuttof jeans and slashdot t-shirts. Nothin says lovin like big breasted hotties in wet tshirts. Farm out the contract to me, I need the work. Have an image of Her Royal Majesty the Queen of England standing in a fountain holding a copy of Red Hat. Wearing a Red Hat. Non sequitur is the king of attention getters. 6
Here is a nice example on how I image the main motive in the picture: a side view of an X-Wing
. Regards,
January
How about one of those pictures of webs made by spiders dosed up on drugs(heroin, speed, alcohol, caffeine etc) ie a tangled incomplete mess? I think that this would perfectly symbolize the relevancy of Linux to 'high-end graphics' professionals..........I look forward to the ranting of Linux bigots with no experience whatsoever of profesional graphics work.(More enlightened Linux advocates may simply take this post as a humorous dig at those who champion GIMP et al without ever having used commercial alternatives:).
something based on that familiar sequence of fish walking out of the water and progressively turning into an ape, then into a man, except this time into a penguin, except this time all the creatures are "leonardo-esque" line-drawings that show their "design", i.e. open source.
other leonardo-based ideas, show leonardo alive today coding opensource. or then-and-now: machiavelli and leonardo. now: gates and collection of linus, stallman, etc. hey, how about leonardo evolves into a hacker, machievelli into gates?
some allegory based on opensource people standing on the shoulders of giants. maybe the closed source giants shrugging people off, or the people don't have instructions to climb up. or a high jump or height competition where you can cooperate and build on what/who came before, or you can't. BTW, I like the .sig I once saw, "if I have not seen as far as some others it is because I stand in the footprints of giants." :)
how about closed-source leonardo's notebook where the bird's wings are moving too fast so you can't see how it flies, or you see water pumping but you can't why... illustrate other "great ideas" from science history closed up: a world where the wheel was closed source and it's primitive and dominated by Microwheel, while another world is open and also has gears and clocks and cds and other round things
or, the escher hand drawing a hand, except indicate that it's programming, not drawing...
or some other escheresque open architecture where the building is populated by programmers but as it winds around it gets more "better" because it can build on itself. perhaps against a backdrop of a flat, proprietary closed landscape of pretty things, but things that are broken because they can't be fixed.
or, some take-off on the famous Apple commercials, all of the lemmings, except instead of falling off the cliff, they are smiling happily and walking onto a giant pyramid of cooperating lemmings...
or biblical tower of microsoft/sun/oracle babel barely getting off the ground as seen from the top of the successfully towering opensource ivory tower...
how about a picture of the rosetta stone, except add more panels to it, keep translating more languages until you eventually get some opensource code. show people using it productively while there are a bunch of other folks as slaves to hooded figures casting very confusing microsoft spells at stonehenge.
show apes like at the beginning of 2001, jumping around ineffectually in front of MSDN cd-roms while, while fully evolved humans do something more meaningful with obelisks of opensource code
show the end of the planet of the apes, except sticking up out of the ground is the remnants of microsoft, oracle and sun, and the apes are the dunces still using proprietary software
show some cathedral v. bazaar allegory (if you get it right, maybe I'd understand it finally) with bill gates sitting on a big pile of money with employees waiting to kiss his ring, but like a political cartoon, show the original ideas that he stole (yep, every single one of em) sticking out of his pockets. show a big crowd in front purchasing, but people around the fringe of that crowd are starting to notice all the nicer free stuff coming from a many new sources.
several big complicated rube goldberg designs that don't work but it's not obvious why to the users because they're closed. then, some opensource rube goldberg designs that are progressively and transparently copied and made better. Rube Goldberg designs are a good example of algorithms that average people can understand, and only because they are opensource.
the proprietary emperor has no clothes, but the prescient little kid is an opensource hacker
johnny appleseed comes to mind as a "giving" figure who left behind stuff that grew.
"new yorker's view of the US" map, except now it's proprietary software view of the world where every thing in the foreground is owned and the distance is barren, vs. the opensource view, where the latter landscape has lots of happy people sharing as far as the eye can see.
opensource movement as the american revolution in the face of various imperial forms of government (sorry, all you ferners reading slashdot, but this is the world's oldest democracy, where the modern ideas of freedom first took root) where all governments had a bill of rights but the non-democratic kept it a secret. soviet union as closed source bill of rights? how about closed source 10 commandments? hmm... they are closed source.
ok, my ideas are getting lousier (regardless of where they started) so I'll quit while I'm still ahead... of where I will be if I keep going.
reposted to make it easy to see.
reposted to make it easy to see. hey, another idea popped into my head: Fermat's last theorem was closed source and look what a mess that turned into.
run a nifty-looking KDE or E/GNOME desktop, and screen capture it. You could have a wordperfect or staroffice word processing window open, with the captions for all the leading stories in it, a GIMP or ee window open with Tux in it, etc etc. Open a GNOME panel drawer with all the spiffy looking subfolders in it, each one corresponding to a article header in that issue. Also have a netscape window open, pointed to linux.org or something. Shows off the funtionality of Linux quite well, as well as the GUI eyecandy. Myc
NO CARRIER
The whole idea is to use images that communicate well to the public the positive elements of Linux, and the open source community
While the Linux penguin will not communicate to the broad masses, it should be included someplace, even if discretely as a trademark symbol. The majority of the imagery should communicate the basic idea of open source and community construction.
So, here is my stab at this ....
The image of an open door is a good image. It should be fairly close to the door, so that you see most of the outside image.
A Nice touch (tm) would be if the door had a small four paneled window in it. The panels of the windows should be dingy or colored glass, with one of the panels broken. The window is not an emphasized element of the picture. It is merely secondary, as an appropriate dig.
Looking out the door you see a picture of a town or city under contruction. An obviously vibrant community working together to build a village/town/city/castle/spaceport/etc. that is a thing of beauty. All of the inhabitants can be penguins, or there can be a topiary in that shape, etc. or else subtly included in the shapes of the design.
the majority of the art is in the depiction of the village/city/castle/spaceport/etc. Alot of fun can be had here.
a variation of this is looking out through a broken window of a castle - looking out over the scene below. This has pluses and minusses as well
based on the idea of penguins workers: a subtitle can be something like:
"Watch out for the Penguins"
That "picture" was very impressive, congratulations to the one who converted the original picture to HTML.
Follow your Euro bills at EBT
What about a penguin , if you absolutly need one ,dressed with the statue of Liberty clothes? It doesn t have to be Tux if you don t want "him" to be seen as a drag-queen .... Has he got a female friend already ???
use the image found on this web site. Or something similar. http://www.kmfms.com/
Here's an idea: Flock of penguins, horded together as a revolution army to thwart the oppressing nemesis, Microsoft (Waving flags bearing the upside down windows logo)...Caption: March to Redmond...or something....
-jc
- tux as a stork, delivering a bundle of source code - good idea to have both Tux /and/ a gnu on the cover. The more-mainstream media coverage of Linux so far has largely ignored GNU's role. - Maybe tux could be riding a gnu (can gnus be ridden?) - as a variation on the ghostbusters giant stay-puft marshmallow man, you could have a portrayal of a giant Tux and the gnu coming out of the ocean, like Godzilla and his friend (whatever his name is...) Instead of the little people fleeing in terror, they could be erecting a big banner and rolling out the welcome mat.
- tux as a stork, delivering a bundle of source code
/and/ a gnu on the cover. The more-mainstream media coverage of Linux so far has largely ignored GNU's role.
- good idea to have both Tux
- Maybe tux could be riding a gnu (can gnus be ridden?)
- as a variation on the ghostbusters giant stay-puft marshmallow man, you could have a portrayal of a giant Tux and the gnu coming out of the ocean, like Godzilla and his friend (whatever his name is...) Instead of the little people fleeing in terror, they could be erecting a big banner and rolling out the welcome mat.
Isn't that logical spock? You know with the kernel as the heart an the shells as docks etc
Penguins are nice animals, if you get to know them
How about a crowd of people stretching their hands towards a single shining point: a glowing Tux- the beloved mascot. This shows both the growing popularity of Linux as well as the open source community of developpers which made Linux possible.
Use a creative way to represent the mass of people -- this way bringing home the message that your magazine is about high end graphics.
Tip: Linux is not about a penguin. It's about people who give freely of their time so they can enjoy computers.