Mascot - Blue Arrara

Gian Paolo Mureddu gmureddu at prodigy.net.mx
Tue Apr 10 18:02:31 UTC 2007


Frederic Hornain escribió:
>
> Dear *,
>
>  
>
> Well, I know that I am not often on the mailing list but can I permit 
> to give you my point of view ?
>
> In addition, I have red this post quite quickly so excuse me in 
> advance if I missed some points.
>
>  
>
> So, at first sight I would be more in accordance with what Alex said.
>
> I do not see any reason why we would need a mascot even if there is a 
> lot of good reasons to create one and that the community want to 
> create one - I respect that -.
>
> Ok, Linux has TUX and BSD has Chuck but have they others kind of logo ???
>
>  
>
> I have already difficulties to explain to people what Fedora is since 
> the split with Red Hat Enterprise Distribution. 
>
> How many time did I hear people asking what is the difference between 
> Red Hat and Fedora or again Fedo.. what?
>
> So if in addition I have to explain that Fedora has one logo and one 
> mascot....
>
> Well, I do not believe that my next event will be easy. You see what I 
> mean. :)
>
> You know what ? Keep it simple as much as possible. That is my advice.
>
>  
>
> Nonetheless I have to admit a nice mascot could be useful for children 
> but at the opposite it would have - I think - a not so good effect on 
> companies and professional world. 
>
>  
>
> How many times in the past do you hear that Linux was a toy for 
> students ???
>
> OK, it is not the case anymore now. Fortunately !
>
> Probably due to its logo representation and obviously a lack of 
> knowledge from professionals about what this OS could do.
>
>  
>
> Even if I have others argument I have to conclude - sorry for that but 
> I do not have lot of time -.
>
> So for me, I think Fedora should keep its logo and should not 
> have another logo or mascot.
>
> However it could be interesting to give one mascot to the 
> Children designed Fedora distribution.
>
> I mean Sugar the OLPC OS.
>
> Let's hope that you understand me, I was not so direct and I did not 
> hurt someone cause I respect what have been done here.
>
> Thanks for your comprehension.
>
>  
>
> BR
>
> Fred
>
>  
>

I really do understand many of the detractors of the mascot idea. 
however there's one little tiny bit that I believe is missing: Fedora 
being the community project it is, and due to the issue with "parent 
company" Red Hat which has for all purposes depleted of meaning the word 
"Fedora" (which originally meant a kind of hat, specifically the "Red 
Hat" hat, had to find a "new meaning", hence the quest for the Logo. 
However the Logo is so heavily protected that it is pretty much useless 
for any "fan art"... and last I heard Fedora wasn't meant for 
corporations to adopt, nor is it intended for production machines 
(desktops or servers) despite of its capabilities. Is Fedora capable of 
being a good corporate desktop machine? Is Fedora capable of being an 
excellent workstation (for media content creation, development, etc)? Is 
Fedora capable of being a good and stable server? To all the previous 
questions the answer is "YES", but "Was it intended to be used as such 
in a production environment?" To that question, and take however you 
like, the answer is "NO".

So, Fedora is still a community project, but the community is limited on 
what we can do with the Logo and there's only so much you can do with 
it, anyway... Hence the "need" for a mascot. Just like the Logo is a 
graphic representation of the *Fedora* "Concept" (remember the word has 
been depleted of its original meaning), which is rigid in nature and is 
jealously protected (as it means brand and product association), a 
"mascot" is a "friendlier" and if you will "freer" (now that would be a 
pun for the "meaning" of the Logo) graphic representation of the 
"values", "characteristics", "features", etc of a product/brand, in this 
case, Fedora. And since we'll never be able to use the real meaning of 
the word ever again (i.e. a hat) for "official" project's graphics, and 
the current use guidelines of the Logo are so restrictive, and because 
people *do* want to be able to manipulate and pour some of each artist' 
personality into it, a mascot is indeed "needed". Fedora is not a 
corporate OS, it may be the foundation of one (like RHEL), but it is 
*not* intended to be one by itself. It can morph into great many things, 
but its main purpose remains to be a cutting edge community project.

So when people asks "What is Fedora [Linux]?" despite of the mascot or 
the Logo or the lack thereof of any of those... You can only say "It is 
a community cutting edge GNU/Linux project"... I don't think that's too 
hard to grasp, unless you need to go explaining "What a community 
GNU/Linux project" is.




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