People want to change the logo from Beastie to something else because Beastie isn't professional enough, so some committers decided to hold a contest for a new logo?
As an artist here is how I see it: Beastie is a mascot, not a logo. It's like having "Disney" with a Mickey Mouse. The logo is either the word Disney in that very distinct font, or the black ears. The mascot can be part of the logo but not always; in the Disney example it's derived from it (this approach could work with Beastie). Another example is monster.com, that also has a distinct mascot and a logo (don't like the logo, just pointing it out).
So the logo contest could use beastie in some interesting way: framed, simplified, stylized, vectorized, etc. In other words made into a real logo from the cartoon character. By stylize I mean for example what the fox looks like in the firefox logo.
Changing logos is never a good thing, it's best done if it's done gradually (think apple losing the stripes). However I don't feel like freebsd has ever really had a logo identity to begin with. Just look here, all the beasties are different:
<http://www.freebsd.org/art.html>
If you're going to use beastie just standing like that, it has to be done much better, vectorize it or do it at a higher resolution. There needs to be a real professional logo.
Finally: it's not about marketing, it's not about commercialization, it's about image. This is a very professional product, many people have contributed years of very hard work to get FreeBSD where it is today. The logo should show the dedication to the project and the high quality to which it aspires. If the image looks like it's drawn by a 15 year old[1], then that's what the project will look like. Ya, "don't judge a book by it's cover" sounds great if no one did it.
Vonleigh Simmons <http://illusionart.com/>
[1] No offense intended. I don't think beastie is bad in any way, I just think that it looks dated; even the lettering for FreeBSD is dated as well.
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