Re: Rebranding OSI.
David, At 9:00 PM -0700 12/8/2000, David Johnson wrote: On Sat, 12 Aug 2000, Ross N. Williams wrote: What's needed is an animal that represents cooperation. How about an ant? Aargh! To me an ant does not represent cooperation, it represents mindless labor and regimentation, and communism. And your point is?! :-) Plus, it is already the mascot for AbiSource. I would feel the same about most other colonial insects, including termites and bees. Termites, eating into the heart of Microsoft! :-) But somehow bees don't seem appropriate to me. Dunno why. But your idea of a mascot is a good one. Thanks. Off the top of my head, here's some ideas for cooperation from the animal kingdom: It's not actually a kingdom; it's an anarchist collective. Only Leo thinks it's a kingdom; the rest of the animals humour him. Wolf. Pack behavior is cooperation, and people don't think of wolves as lowly workers tirelessly working for the unseen queen. They actually have individual traits, and can survive on their own. "Oooh granma, what big disks you have." "All the better to back you up with, my dear." "Oooh granma, what big CPUs you have." "All the better to render you fractally with, my dear." "Oooh granma, what big free software licences you have." "All the better to sue you with, my dear." Grr! Eeeek! Dolphin. Not only to they cooperate, they are also one of the few animals that share. And they're intensely individualists (at least that's the general perception) while still operating within a community of sorts. Back off man! :-) I've got the dolphin! Go choose the numbat or something. Platypus. Resurrect the old Linux mascot from the dustbin of obscurity. It represents many different parts pieced together into a whole. And it's easy to create a cartoonish and friendly image from. I like this one, but I'm not sure they're terribly cooperative or social creatures. Every time some naturalist finds one, it's the only one within 2000 miles and they get a Nobel prize for finding it. As far as anyone knows, platypuses breed using mail-order IVF. And some non-serious ideas :-) Remora. Hitching a free ride off of others. Porcupine. Aptly suits the hacker stereotype. Yes; both have difficulty getting laid. Ross. Dr Ross N. Williams ([EMAIL PROTECTED]), +61 8 8232-6262 (fax-6264). Director, Rocksoft Pty Ltd, Adelaide, Australia: http://www.rocksoft.com/ Protect your files with Veracity data integrity: http://www.veracity.com/
Re: Rebranding OSI.
On Sun, 13 Aug 2000, Ross N. Williams wrote: Aargh! To me an ant does not represent cooperation, it represents mindless labor and regimentation, and communism. And your point is?! :-) A mascot should represent how we view ourselves, not how idiot reporters see us :-P Platypus. Resurrect the old Linux mascot from the dustbin of obscurity. It represents many different parts pieced together into a whole. And it's easy to create a cartoonish and friendly image from. I like this one, but I'm not sure they're terribly cooperative or social creatures. Every time some naturalist finds one, it's the only one within 2000 miles and they get a Nobel prize for finding it. As far as anyone knows, platypuses breed using mail-order IVF. Well, they're not *that* rare. Let's see, platypus traits that fit the hacker community... Duck bill to represent bottom feeding, beaver tail to represent what they rarely get, and poison claws to represent their typical usenet post. Oh, and they lay eggs, as many of us have done to our chagrin :-) -- David Johnson _ http://www.usermode.org
Re: Rebranding OSI.
On Sun, Aug 13, 2000 at 01:17:05PM +0930, Ross N. Williams wrote: At 10:54 PM -0400 12/8/2000, Russell Nelson wrote: We have since created the OSI Certified open source certification mark. We've had no trouble defending that mark. What you should do is invent an OSI Certified mascot. :-) ...in which case I suggest we (ahem) piggy-back off the already confusing nearness in cyberspace with http://www.osi.org/ and pick a swine. Hmmm So what does connotate "Open Source" -- Karsten M. Self [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.netcom.com/~kmself Evangelist, Opensales, Inc.http://www.opensales.org What part of "Gestalt" don't you understand? Debian GNU/Linux rocks! http://gestalt-system.sourceforge.net/K5: http://www.kuro5hin.org GPG fingerprint: F932 8B25 5FDD 2528 D595 DC61 3847 889F 55F2 B9B0 PGP signature
Rebranding OSI.
At 10:54 PM -0400 12/8/2000, Russell Nelson wrote: We have since created the OSI Certified open source certification mark. We've had no trouble defending that mark. What you should do is invent an OSI Certified mascot. :-) Everyone knows that if you want Linux you look for the penguin, and if you want BSD you look for a deamon. The term "Open Source" has caught on, but "OSI Certified" looks like "Open Standards Initiative" or a million other expansions like that. Someone needs to make it unambiguous somehow. Experience shows that, where words fail, an animal can do the trick :-) Unfortunately, O'Reilly have nearly used up all the animals. The last time I looked, they were down to allocating the wood weevil or something :-) But I'm sure OSI can find something. What's needed is an animal that represents cooperation. How about an ant? Ants cooperate like crazy and many-eyeballs debugging is a bit antlike. So why not create a cartoon ant character who looks friendly and industrious and trademark that? Maybe an ant with a hard hat. Then when people see the ant, they know the software is certified by "that well meaning open source crowd the name of whose certification mark I forget". Unambiguous. If there's no ant, it's not open. The new branding equation is: ANT == OPEN :-) Ross. Dr Ross N. Williams ([EMAIL PROTECTED]), +61 8 8232-6262 (fax-6264). Director, Rocksoft Pty Ltd, Adelaide, Australia: http://www.rocksoft.com/ Protect your files with Veracity data integrity: http://www.veracity.com/
Re: Rebranding OSI.
On Sat, 12 Aug 2000, Ross N. Williams wrote: What's needed is an animal that represents cooperation. How about an ant? Aargh! To me an ant does not represent cooperation, it represents mindless labor and regimentation, and communism. Plus, it is already the mascot for AbiSource. I would feel the same about most other colonial insects, including termites and bees. But your idea of a mascot is a good one. Off the top of my head, here's some ideas for cooperation from the animal kingdom: Wolf. Pack behavior is cooperation, and people don't think of wolves as lowly workers tirelessly working for the unseen queen. They actually have individual traits, and can survive on their own. Dolphin. Not only to they cooperate, they are also one of the few animals that share. And they're intensely individualists (at least that's the general perception) while still operating within a community of sorts. Platypus. Resurrect the old Linux mascot from the dustbin of obscurity. It represents many different parts pieced together into a whole. And it's easy to create a cartoonish and friendly image from. And some non-serious ideas :-) Remora. Hitching a free ride off of others. Porcupine. Aptly suits the hacker stereotype. -- David Johnson _ http://www.usermode.org
Re: Rebranding OSI.
Ross N. Williams [EMAIL PROTECTED]: How about an ant? No good. AbiWord got there first :-). -- a href="http://www.tuxedo.org/~esr"Eric S. Raymond/a The difference between death and taxes is death doesn't get worse every time Congress meets -- Will Rogers
