10 ms·

Superstitious Users and the FreeBSD Logo

114 points by CppPro 2y ago

AStonesThrow 2y ago
[flagged]
f1shy 2y ago
(2011)
spacesanjeet 2y ago
I am trying to grasp what I have just read. I may be able to understand if this is sarcasm probably
- tivert 2y ago
  It sounds like a fake story. Doesn't pass the smell test for me: > I just got a call from the owner of a hotel for which we provide hotspot service.... The owner could make no headway by explaining that the besneakered mascot was a cartoon character and was a daemon, not the Devil. And she feared upsetting the guest even more if she said that large portions of the same software are inside every Mac and iPad. What "owner of a hotel," 1) knows this much about BSD to explain to a random guest and 2) outsources their wifi hotpot service? Then everyone, owner and guest starts calling the service provider about controversy, instead of the guest relocating to other hotel in the area.
  - _3u10 2y ago
    Yeah obviously fake, who ever calls people. It's not the owner of the hotel, it's the person / company who setup their WiFi. Presumably on the wifi connection page there's a number to call for tech support. http://lariat.net/ http://lariat.net/
    - lIl-IIIl 2y ago
      The first sentence says: "I just got a call from the owner of a hotel..." The story is probably all true, even though it does have a bit of that "Elderly man set cruise control on at their RV then got up to make a sandwich" urban myth/chain letter vibe to it.
      - _3u10 2y ago
        Yeah, they even went to the length of setting up a fake ISP with a FreeBSD nerdesque 1995 web design vibe too. If you've ever done tech support you know this call is all too real.
- welferkj 2y ago
  Having lived through the 90s as a young adult, I can assure you back then the Family Values crowd was just as annoying and censorious as the Woko Haram is today. 2011 seems a bit late for that kind of thing, but it's entirely plausible a few NPCs didn't get the patch yet.
  - marcus_holmes 2y ago
    Down under, we have a term for them: wowsers [0] The term was coined a hundred years ago. Every generation has a different version of the moral scare that will corrupt the children and needs urgent policing. The policing is always about controlling other people's behaviour (rather than, for example, educating the children). [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wowser https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wowser
    - tjpnz 2y ago
      The latest version also goes after adults.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - ykonstant 2y ago
    > Woko Haram Brilliant (≧▽≦)
- ykonstant 2y ago
  I don't know if this story is true, but the story of Greek police raiding my local D&D store and confiscating all books to check for satanism in 2001 is very true. For a long time, Kaissa (the store) was left without manuals or adventure books.
mbreese 2y ago
As is mentioned in the thread, this is a far older "problem" for BSD than this 2011 thread. The oldest story I know about this "issue" was linked here (complete with a late 80s SNL joke): http://monster-island.org/tinashumor/humor/daemon.html http://monster-island.org/tinashumor/humor/daemon.html The page itself is now offline, but the original was around at least as far back as 1999. (Wayback link) https://web.archive.org/web/19991012013717/http://www.monster-island.org/tinashumor/humor/daemon.html https://web.archive.org/web/19991012013717/http://www.monste...
teekert 2y ago
Well, I went to primary school with a heavy christian tradition and would probably have felt the same. I'm very happy that someone decided to tell me at about age 12 that perhaps it's not all literally true and some people have other ideas. Some not even involving concepts like eternal damnation, original sin, an omnipotent being that turns women into salt pillars but allows for children with bone cancer to exist, and something as undefinable as an eternal soul. This ended my suffering. We have to feel bad for the people still in that system.
- larodi 2y ago
  Of course we should also be well aware of what penguins love to do: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/jun/09/sex-depravity-penguins-scott-antarctic https://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/jun/09/sex-depravity-... And it was long kept a secret. From where I come from there is a saying which goes like ‘Good thing you pulled the small devil’ (and not the big one, implied). Besides satanism or sheitanism as far as I know, is only objectified as the horn-y thing within a Christian (ok, Abrahamic to include Old Testament and Islam) framework. A thing with horns and a fork is not necessarily within this framework. Should you want to look further, go take a look at Kali or potentially many other Hindu deities showing here and there as mascots. These are no entities to joke with, and humility is not part of this tradition. So I say, leave small devil do his wonderful work and all the wonderful people who have us FreeBSD and as consequence Darwin, iOS, the TCP/IP stack and many more. The disguise of actual Satan, should we agree is a thing, is never so obvious. And typically has more humane look, very often wears Prada.
  - Yoric 2y ago
    I remember seeing Muslim and Jewish descriptions of the Devil in various stories, they didn't particularly look like a horned man with a pitchfork. Not sure where that comes from.
- TiredOfLife 2y ago
  And then you find out about Santa Claus and Easter Bunny.
weinzierl 2y ago
The BSD logo was originally drawn by John Lassetter, who would later write and direct Toy Story and a couple of other successful movies. https://www.jacobelder.com/2024/01/17/director-of-toy-story-also-drew-bsd-daemon.html https://www.jacobelder.com/2024/01/17/director-of-toy-story-... Previous discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39030991 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39030991 EDIT: While the John Lassetter version became most popular he did not draw the original. Thanks to dagmx for pointing that out and the additional background info in their comment. Also there is a Wikipedia article about the BSD daemon with even more details about the history of the logo. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/BSD_Daemon https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/BSD_Daemon
- dagmx 2y ago
  This is sort of incorrect. The BSD daemon was originally drawn by Phil Foglio. As seen here https://www.mckusick.com/beastie/jpg/foglio.jpg https://www.mckusick.com/beastie/jpg/foglio.jpg Lasseter did a later (more current and iconic) revision. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BSD_Daemon?wprov=sfti1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BSD_Daemon?wprov=sfti1 Also John did more than just direct Toy Story. Lasseter was one of the founders of Pixar , directed several movies, took over the chief creative officer role for both Pixar and Walt Disney Animation, before eventually leaving after several allegations of sexual impropriety. He’s now heading up Skydance Animation for Larry Elissons son, and has a contractual liability clause for any further impropriety. One of the big “never meet your heroes” examples, along with the other Pixar co-founder, Ed Catmull who was behind the industry wide wage fixing scandal. On the flip side he also invented so many technologies that are key to computer graphics today, including the alpha channel. Somehow Steve jobs, famously abrasive, was the least problematic of the founders.
  - larodi 2y ago
    So both children of Larry are doing movies then, right? The daughter did the movie Her, which is funny, cause OpenAI used the same concept for ads. Wonder if my children would achieve my dream to be a director. I only got it to being on stage as an assistant professor, and a deejay. And promoter also. The promoter is sort of director, but is more an executive production role really.
marshray 2y ago
I remember my wife describing the funny look she got from our "traditional" next door neighbor as she took the latest edition of the BSD journal out of the mailbox. Never went any further than that. But if you choose to use a literal hell-themed demon as your product's logo, don't be surprised if it limits your user base.
- wkat4242 2y ago
  I don't think 'making it big' is the point of FreeBSD anyway. Right now the share of the desktop market is 0.01% (of which I'm a proud part) I'm not hoping for 'the year of FreeBSD'. I wouldn't even want that to happen because with that comes much commercial involvement like Linux is seeing. There's always reasons people don't choose a product and there's much much bigger ones leading people not to choose FreeBSD than this.
- hggigg 2y ago
  We used to have Demon internet in the UK. The local vicar told us proudly that he was using it and thought it was funny. Depends how backwards people are…
  - andylynch 2y ago
    Typical :). Our one collects mistletoe and hands it out after Christmas service to acknowledge the old ways, and says so with a smile while passing it out!
  - gpvos 2y ago
    Their phone numbers all had 666 in them, if I recall correctly.
  - mr_toad 2y ago
    In England only about a fifth of the population believe in a literal devil. And the Anglican communion has never been of a literalist persuasion.
- ahoka 2y ago
  It limits it for the better.
microtonal 2y ago
It's such a shame, because I really like the FreeBSD/NetBSD daemon logo, the FreeBSD project had a lot of nice variations in the past for the Walnut creek CD-ROM sets [1]. The 'glass ball with horns' is far more boring, and I'm sure would still offend some people because it has horns. [1] E.g. https://i.redd.it/ha7w5438mq031.jpg https://i.redd.it/ha7w5438mq031.jpg
jey 2y ago
Resolved: WORKSFORME Comment: cats are also horned devils but they seem to be universally accepted anyway
iamnotsure 2y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Not_to_Be_Reproduced https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Not_to_Be_Reproduced
hggigg 2y ago
Eh could be worse. My daughter’s boyfriend’s parents won’t use Apple stuff because the logo has a bite out of it. Hilariously though they are paranoid about China and Chinese influence and go on about it all the time including Apple making stuff in China but have Huawei phones.
- BSDobelix 2y ago
  It's not just the bite but the Apple I was first sold for 666$
- thiht 2y ago
  I’m not sure I understand, what’s wrong with the bite? I’m guessing something with biting the forbidden fruit or some other nonsense? Do these people know it’s at no point in any scriptures described as an apple? Also do these people understand what a metaphor is? Christian literalism is absolutely moronic.
  - hggigg 2y ago
    Something like that.
veltas 2y ago
The FreeBSD Code of Conduct mentions being welcoming to people regardless of religion, but by using imagery that explicitly comes from religious depictions of evil in their logo they're blatantly being unwelcoming to a lot of religious people. Would they react differently (albeit more politely) if someone complained today, now the Code of Conduct exists, especially as 'fixing' this would require a full rebrand? I think the hotel guest was right to complain, and in my understanding of the Bible as a Christian I would say it is appropriate to refuse to do business with someone using such images, but also the image does not have any 'power'. That is, it is potentially immoral to associate with it, but the image shouldn't be 'scary' to any Christian, it's just a picture.
- ulrikrasmussen 2y ago
  You have a fair point in general, but in this particular case I think the guest is overreacting, and accommodating such people borders being tolerant to intolerance.
  - veltas 2y ago
    I agree that the guest shouldn't have said it was 'abuse' to put the logo up. There is no actual harm that can come from that picture.
- BSDobelix 2y ago
  > blatantly being unwelcoming to a lot of religious people. It's maybe a clever tactic to keep religious extremists away. >as a Christian I would say it is appropriate to refuse to do business with someone using such images Send from a Iphone ;)
  - veltas 2y ago
    > It's maybe a clever tactic to keep religious extremists away. Or a clever tactic to reduce diversity, because many diverse countries of the world are full of people who would be uncomfortable or wouldn't want to associate with such images, because of their culture and religion. > Send from a Iphone ;) Sent from Android, but besides the point. I've used FreeBSD and have tried to make it work for me. Unfortunately because of the logo I can't actually use it in general. For instance I wouldn't be comfortable using it with the church website I help maintain. I'm sure this is all just superstitious nonsense to you, but in truth this is part of my religion. Believing in the supernatural and sin is not 'extreme', unless you think Christianity in general is extreme. I'm not stopping you from being anti religious, or anti Christian. I don't it's good, but I think it would be wrong to force you to not be. But FreeBSD claims to abide by a code of welcoming all people regardless of religion, I'm pointing out the hypocrisy here.
pyuser583 2y ago
“It’s not the Devil, it’s a daemon.” That’s a not a conversation I would want to have. The etymology of “daemon” in the computer sense is Maxwell’s Daemon, a thought experiment involving a mischievous demon. Even to an above average intelligence person, that’s a lot of explaining. Most pre-modern peoples believed in demons, and most people believe images have power. This seems like a violation of the best practices of logo design.
- krackers 2y ago
  From Wikipedia, "Daemon is actually a much older form of "demon"; daemons have no particular bias towards good or evil, but rather serve to help define a person's character or personality" That being said, while the etymology of the term may not be directly referring to the modern rendition as the "devil", doesn't the logo (red thing with horns and trident) directly reference it (as a pun on daemon/demon)? In some sense I do _understand_ where the person in OP's story is coming from. We imbue words and images with power through collective culture (Stallman certainly has remarked on the power of a name, see [1]), and if you had placed great (negative) emotional weight behind a concept, then you would be distressed to see it in something you interact with. Ironically I think if the actual logo ended up being the "bad taste" version Wikipedia mentions as >a picture of the BSD Daemon blowtorching a Solaris logo it'd actually end up as more acceptable since it now gets framed as a narrative ("why a demon? Because who else would dare take on solaris") [1] https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/why-call-it-the-swindle.en.html https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/why-call-it-the-swindle.en.ht...
- thiht 2y ago
  Believing in demons in 2024 is a violation of basic human intelligence. Christian literalism is a travesty and has no right to impose anything.
BSDobelix 2y ago
@CppPro the logo really annoys you, doesn't it? 2 days ago https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41818595 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41818595 >>1. Change the logo from a demon to something else. (no matter if it is a play on the word "deamon", it is repulsive to many of the 2.4 billion Christians that can be potential users of FreeBSD)
- CppPro 2y ago
  I have been denounced :(
  - BSDobelix 2y ago
    Keep your head up ;)
  - bubblesnort 2y ago
    This is brilliant. Thanks for the laugh. https://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-chat/2011-November/006645.html https://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-chat/2011-Novemb...
Joker_vD 2y ago
The strange thing is, there are lot of cathedral churches with all sorts of demonic-looking creatures on them as decorations; not to mention quite an amount of folklore in which some saint or other would overpower the lesser imps with the strength of his faith and make them do his bidding.
- AStonesThrow 2y ago
  Indeed, and if you look closely at iconography as late as the Counterreformation (and back to ancient Greece), you'll find horns on the head of Moses, Elijah, et. al., because horns signify wisdom rather than evil. The devil has been depicted with horns to acknowledge his wisdom.
tsegratis 2y ago
is there an alternative mascot people could prefer? on a mascot rating puffy is easily the best imo... what could freebsd have? any ideas?
- tsegratis 2y ago
  https://wiki.freebsd.org/Community/Dogs https://wiki.freebsd.org/Community/Dogs https://wiki.freebsd.org/Community/Cats https://wiki.freebsd.org/Community/Cats
- oneeyedpigeon 2y ago
  An alternative mascot that no human could conceivably find offensive? No. I think we have to make a judgement call here: is there any kind of meaningful threshold we could agree upon, e.g. if 50%+1 people find a logo offensive, it has to get replaced? Or do we just ignore the crazies and get on with making the world a better place?
- tsegratis 2y ago
  puffin or pangolin? puffin would have double benefit of being better than a penguin
  - tsegratis 2y ago
    and better looking :-) https://duckduckgo.com/?q=puffin&t=brave&iar=images&iax=images&ia=images https://duckduckgo.com/?q=puffin&t=brave&iar=images&iax=imag...
  - BSDobelix 2y ago
    There is already a project with that mascot (PrestaShop): https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_computing_mascots https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_computing_mascots
- boffinAudio 2y ago
  If only there were a universally recognized icon that represented the Universal Declaration of Human Rights... seems to me, that would be a good logo to use for an operating system dedicated to freedom and collective competence.
latexr 2y ago
Reminded me of a similar story: https://web.archive.org/web/20120104013009/https://monster-island.org/tinashumor/humor/daemon.html https://web.archive.org/web/20120104013009/https://monster-i... Which reminded me of Bill Hicks: https://youtube.com/watch?v=I1_6FlQfbho https://youtube.com/watch?v=I1_6FlQfbho https://youtube.com/watch?v=oyWzSDg0pc8 https://youtube.com/watch?v=oyWzSDg0pc8
tmtvl 2y ago
Fun fact: the Belgian national football (association football, not rugger) team is called the Red Devils and fans will go to matches painted red, wearing horns, and carrying an inflatable trident.
- gpderetta 2y ago
  A red Devil is also the official mascot of the well known Italian AC Milan football club.
- oneeyedpigeon 2y ago
  Same for Manchester United, a team which literally has a red devil in its crest: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/7/7a/Manchester_United_FC_crest.svg/400px-Manchester_United_FC_crest.svg.png https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/7/7a/Manches...
bell-cot 2y ago
At n=1, you could try politely asking a customer how they feel about Duke University using "Blue Devils" as the name of their athletic teams, and adopting that name back when Duke itself was still named Trinity College. Do they avoid businesses with managers who graduated from Duke's business school, or churches with ministers who graduated from Duke's divinity school? Then there are all the American military squadrons and divisions and such which have nicknamed themselves the Red Devils... More soberly and at scale, one of the boring functions of real business managers is making sure that organization and product names, images, etc. are as inoffensive as possible to as many people as possible. Back in the '90's, when I first saw the Beastie and Tux mascots, my reaction was "one of these OS's wants to be used on 1% of computers, and the other wants to be used on 99% of computers".
- oneeyedpigeon 2y ago
  Or how they feel about eating deviled eggs... https://www.nola.com/entertainment_life/eat-drink/article_f20f92b5-e32b-5cc7-9e7c-91f02dc542f3.html https://www.nola.com/entertainment_life/eat-drink/article_f2...
LeonM 2y ago
Instead of trying to change the mascot, why not add a little "what is this?" button next to it, which when clicked explains that it is a mascot, not some devil's worship. Also, somehow I got the feeling that this hotel wasn't seriously going to lose business over the mascot. A 'long term guest' that is offended by something as innocent as a picture sure sounds to me like someone just trying get out of some obligation.
- krapp 2y ago
  That wouldn't change the mindset of the kind of person we're talking about. They would just assume you're worshiping the devil and lying about it.
wrp 2y ago
> a daemon, not the Devil. Many years ago, I was working in some Islamic countries where getting literature through customs was very hit and miss, depending on the religious sensibilities of the inspecting agent. I actually called the FreeBSD office and explained to someone that it would make my life easier if I could get copies of their material without their devil logo. The person I talked to was completely unsympathetic. "Just explain to them that it's a daemon, not a demon."
- Yoric 2y ago
  Pretty sure that Daemons (and all other supernatural creatures from Greek myths) would be frowned upon by a religious inspector from any Abrahamic religion.
josefritzishere 2y ago
hilarious

114 points by CppPro 2y ago

AStonesThrow 2y ago

[flagged]

f1shy 2y ago

(2011)

spacesanjeet 2y ago

I am trying to grasp what I have just read. I may be able to understand if this is sarcasm probably

tivert 2y ago
It sounds like a fake story. Doesn't pass the smell test for me: > I just got a call from the owner of a hotel for which we provide hotspot service.... The owner could make no headway by explaining that the besneakered mascot was a cartoon character and was a daemon, not the Devil. And she feared upsetting the guest even more if she said that large portions of the same software are inside every Mac and iPad. What "owner of a hotel," 1) knows this much about BSD to explain to a random guest and 2) outsources their wifi hotpot service? Then everyone, owner and guest starts calling the service provider about controversy, instead of the guest relocating to other hotel in the area.
- _3u10 2y ago
  Yeah obviously fake, who ever calls people. It's not the owner of the hotel, it's the person / company who setup their WiFi. Presumably on the wifi connection page there's a number to call for tech support. http://lariat.net/ http://lariat.net/
  - lIl-IIIl 2y ago
    The first sentence says: "I just got a call from the owner of a hotel..." The story is probably all true, even though it does have a bit of that "Elderly man set cruise control on at their RV then got up to make a sandwich" urban myth/chain letter vibe to it.
    - _3u10 2y ago
      Yeah, they even went to the length of setting up a fake ISP with a FreeBSD nerdesque 1995 web design vibe too. If you've ever done tech support you know this call is all too real.
welferkj 2y ago
Having lived through the 90s as a young adult, I can assure you back then the Family Values crowd was just as annoying and censorious as the Woko Haram is today. 2011 seems a bit late for that kind of thing, but it's entirely plausible a few NPCs didn't get the patch yet.
- marcus_holmes 2y ago
  Down under, we have a term for them: wowsers [0] The term was coined a hundred years ago. Every generation has a different version of the moral scare that will corrupt the children and needs urgent policing. The policing is always about controlling other people's behaviour (rather than, for example, educating the children). [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wowser https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wowser
  - tjpnz 2y ago
    The latest version also goes after adults.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- ykonstant 2y ago
  > Woko Haram Brilliant (≧▽≦)
ykonstant 2y ago
I don't know if this story is true, but the story of Greek police raiding my local D&D store and confiscating all books to check for satanism in 2001 is very true. For a long time, Kaissa (the store) was left without manuals or adventure books.

mbreese 2y ago

As is mentioned in the thread, this is a far older "problem" for BSD than this 2011 thread. The oldest story I know about this "issue" was linked here (complete with a late 80s SNL joke): http://monster-island.org/tinashumor/humor/daemon.html http://monster-island.org/tinashumor/humor/daemon.html The page itself is now offline, but the original was around at least as far back as 1999. (Wayback link) https://web.archive.org/web/19991012013717/http://www.monster-island.org/tinashumor/humor/daemon.html https://web.archive.org/web/19991012013717/http://www.monste...

teekert 2y ago

Well, I went to primary school with a heavy christian tradition and would probably have felt the same. I'm very happy that someone decided to tell me at about age 12 that perhaps it's not all literally true and some people have other ideas. Some not even involving concepts like eternal damnation, original sin, an omnipotent being that turns women into salt pillars but allows for children with bone cancer to exist, and something as undefinable as an eternal soul. This ended my suffering. We have to feel bad for the people still in that system.

larodi 2y ago
Of course we should also be well aware of what penguins love to do: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/jun/09/sex-depravity-penguins-scott-antarctic https://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/jun/09/sex-depravity-... And it was long kept a secret. From where I come from there is a saying which goes like ‘Good thing you pulled the small devil’ (and not the big one, implied). Besides satanism or sheitanism as far as I know, is only objectified as the horn-y thing within a Christian (ok, Abrahamic to include Old Testament and Islam) framework. A thing with horns and a fork is not necessarily within this framework. Should you want to look further, go take a look at Kali or potentially many other Hindu deities showing here and there as mascots. These are no entities to joke with, and humility is not part of this tradition. So I say, leave small devil do his wonderful work and all the wonderful people who have us FreeBSD and as consequence Darwin, iOS, the TCP/IP stack and many more. The disguise of actual Satan, should we agree is a thing, is never so obvious. And typically has more humane look, very often wears Prada.
- Yoric 2y ago
  I remember seeing Muslim and Jewish descriptions of the Devil in various stories, they didn't particularly look like a horned man with a pitchfork. Not sure where that comes from.
TiredOfLife 2y ago
And then you find out about Santa Claus and Easter Bunny.

weinzierl 2y ago

The BSD logo was originally drawn by John Lassetter, who would later write and direct Toy Story and a couple of other successful movies. https://www.jacobelder.com/2024/01/17/director-of-toy-story-also-drew-bsd-daemon.html https://www.jacobelder.com/2024/01/17/director-of-toy-story-... Previous discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39030991 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39030991 EDIT: While the John Lassetter version became most popular he did not draw the original. Thanks to dagmx for pointing that out and the additional background info in their comment. Also there is a Wikipedia article about the BSD daemon with even more details about the history of the logo. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/BSD_Daemon https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/BSD_Daemon

dagmx 2y ago
This is sort of incorrect. The BSD daemon was originally drawn by Phil Foglio. As seen here https://www.mckusick.com/beastie/jpg/foglio.jpg https://www.mckusick.com/beastie/jpg/foglio.jpg Lasseter did a later (more current and iconic) revision. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BSD_Daemon?wprov=sfti1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BSD_Daemon?wprov=sfti1 Also John did more than just direct Toy Story. Lasseter was one of the founders of Pixar , directed several movies, took over the chief creative officer role for both Pixar and Walt Disney Animation, before eventually leaving after several allegations of sexual impropriety. He’s now heading up Skydance Animation for Larry Elissons son, and has a contractual liability clause for any further impropriety. One of the big “never meet your heroes” examples, along with the other Pixar co-founder, Ed Catmull who was behind the industry wide wage fixing scandal. On the flip side he also invented so many technologies that are key to computer graphics today, including the alpha channel. Somehow Steve jobs, famously abrasive, was the least problematic of the founders.
- larodi 2y ago
  So both children of Larry are doing movies then, right? The daughter did the movie Her, which is funny, cause OpenAI used the same concept for ads. Wonder if my children would achieve my dream to be a director. I only got it to being on stage as an assistant professor, and a deejay. And promoter also. The promoter is sort of director, but is more an executive production role really.

marshray 2y ago

I remember my wife describing the funny look she got from our "traditional" next door neighbor as she took the latest edition of the BSD journal out of the mailbox. Never went any further than that. But if you choose to use a literal hell-themed demon as your product's logo, don't be surprised if it limits your user base.

wkat4242 2y ago
I don't think 'making it big' is the point of FreeBSD anyway. Right now the share of the desktop market is 0.01% (of which I'm a proud part) I'm not hoping for 'the year of FreeBSD'. I wouldn't even want that to happen because with that comes much commercial involvement like Linux is seeing. There's always reasons people don't choose a product and there's much much bigger ones leading people not to choose FreeBSD than this.
hggigg 2y ago
We used to have Demon internet in the UK. The local vicar told us proudly that he was using it and thought it was funny. Depends how backwards people are…
- andylynch 2y ago
  Typical :). Our one collects mistletoe and hands it out after Christmas service to acknowledge the old ways, and says so with a smile while passing it out!
- gpvos 2y ago
  Their phone numbers all had 666 in them, if I recall correctly.
- mr_toad 2y ago
  In England only about a fifth of the population believe in a literal devil. And the Anglican communion has never been of a literalist persuasion.
ahoka 2y ago
It limits it for the better.

microtonal 2y ago

It's such a shame, because I really like the FreeBSD/NetBSD daemon logo, the FreeBSD project had a lot of nice variations in the past for the Walnut creek CD-ROM sets [1]. The 'glass ball with horns' is far more boring, and I'm sure would still offend some people because it has horns. [1] E.g. https://i.redd.it/ha7w5438mq031.jpg https://i.redd.it/ha7w5438mq031.jpg

jey 2y ago

Resolved: WORKSFORME Comment: cats are also horned devils but they seem to be universally accepted anyway

iamnotsure 2y ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Not_to_Be_Reproduced https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Not_to_Be_Reproduced

hggigg 2y ago

Eh could be worse. My daughter’s boyfriend’s parents won’t use Apple stuff because the logo has a bite out of it. Hilariously though they are paranoid about China and Chinese influence and go on about it all the time including Apple making stuff in China but have Huawei phones.

BSDobelix 2y ago
It's not just the bite but the Apple I was first sold for 666$
thiht 2y ago
I’m not sure I understand, what’s wrong with the bite? I’m guessing something with biting the forbidden fruit or some other nonsense? Do these people know it’s at no point in any scriptures described as an apple? Also do these people understand what a metaphor is? Christian literalism is absolutely moronic.
- hggigg 2y ago
  Something like that.

veltas 2y ago

The FreeBSD Code of Conduct mentions being welcoming to people regardless of religion, but by using imagery that explicitly comes from religious depictions of evil in their logo they're blatantly being unwelcoming to a lot of religious people. Would they react differently (albeit more politely) if someone complained today, now the Code of Conduct exists, especially as 'fixing' this would require a full rebrand? I think the hotel guest was right to complain, and in my understanding of the Bible as a Christian I would say it is appropriate to refuse to do business with someone using such images, but also the image does not have any 'power'. That is, it is potentially immoral to associate with it, but the image shouldn't be 'scary' to any Christian, it's just a picture.

ulrikrasmussen 2y ago
You have a fair point in general, but in this particular case I think the guest is overreacting, and accommodating such people borders being tolerant to intolerance.
- veltas 2y ago
  I agree that the guest shouldn't have said it was 'abuse' to put the logo up. There is no actual harm that can come from that picture.
BSDobelix 2y ago
> blatantly being unwelcoming to a lot of religious people. It's maybe a clever tactic to keep religious extremists away. >as a Christian I would say it is appropriate to refuse to do business with someone using such images Send from a Iphone ;)
- veltas 2y ago
  > It's maybe a clever tactic to keep religious extremists away. Or a clever tactic to reduce diversity, because many diverse countries of the world are full of people who would be uncomfortable or wouldn't want to associate with such images, because of their culture and religion. > Send from a Iphone ;) Sent from Android, but besides the point. I've used FreeBSD and have tried to make it work for me. Unfortunately because of the logo I can't actually use it in general. For instance I wouldn't be comfortable using it with the church website I help maintain. I'm sure this is all just superstitious nonsense to you, but in truth this is part of my religion. Believing in the supernatural and sin is not 'extreme', unless you think Christianity in general is extreme. I'm not stopping you from being anti religious, or anti Christian. I don't it's good, but I think it would be wrong to force you to not be. But FreeBSD claims to abide by a code of welcoming all people regardless of religion, I'm pointing out the hypocrisy here.

pyuser583 2y ago

“It’s not the Devil, it’s a daemon.” That’s a not a conversation I would want to have. The etymology of “daemon” in the computer sense is Maxwell’s Daemon, a thought experiment involving a mischievous demon. Even to an above average intelligence person, that’s a lot of explaining. Most pre-modern peoples believed in demons, and most people believe images have power. This seems like a violation of the best practices of logo design.

krackers 2y ago
From Wikipedia, "Daemon is actually a much older form of "demon"; daemons have no particular bias towards good or evil, but rather serve to help define a person's character or personality" That being said, while the etymology of the term may not be directly referring to the modern rendition as the "devil", doesn't the logo (red thing with horns and trident) directly reference it (as a pun on daemon/demon)? In some sense I do _understand_ where the person in OP's story is coming from. We imbue words and images with power through collective culture (Stallman certainly has remarked on the power of a name, see [1]), and if you had placed great (negative) emotional weight behind a concept, then you would be distressed to see it in something you interact with. Ironically I think if the actual logo ended up being the "bad taste" version Wikipedia mentions as >a picture of the BSD Daemon blowtorching a Solaris logo it'd actually end up as more acceptable since it now gets framed as a narrative ("why a demon? Because who else would dare take on solaris") [1] https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/why-call-it-the-swindle.en.html https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/why-call-it-the-swindle.en.ht...
thiht 2y ago
Believing in demons in 2024 is a violation of basic human intelligence. Christian literalism is a travesty and has no right to impose anything.

BSDobelix 2y ago

@CppPro the logo really annoys you, doesn't it? 2 days ago https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41818595 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41818595 >>1. Change the logo from a demon to something else. (no matter if it is a play on the word "deamon", it is repulsive to many of the 2.4 billion Christians that can be potential users of FreeBSD)

CppPro 2y ago
I have been denounced :(
- BSDobelix 2y ago
  Keep your head up ;)
- bubblesnort 2y ago
  This is brilliant. Thanks for the laugh. https://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-chat/2011-November/006645.html https://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-chat/2011-Novemb...

Joker_vD 2y ago

The strange thing is, there are lot of cathedral churches with all sorts of demonic-looking creatures on them as decorations; not to mention quite an amount of folklore in which some saint or other would overpower the lesser imps with the strength of his faith and make them do his bidding.

AStonesThrow 2y ago
Indeed, and if you look closely at iconography as late as the Counterreformation (and back to ancient Greece), you'll find horns on the head of Moses, Elijah, et. al., because horns signify wisdom rather than evil. The devil has been depicted with horns to acknowledge his wisdom.

tsegratis 2y ago

is there an alternative mascot people could prefer? on a mascot rating puffy is easily the best imo... what could freebsd have? any ideas?

tsegratis 2y ago
https://wiki.freebsd.org/Community/Dogs https://wiki.freebsd.org/Community/Dogs https://wiki.freebsd.org/Community/Cats https://wiki.freebsd.org/Community/Cats
oneeyedpigeon 2y ago
An alternative mascot that no human could conceivably find offensive? No. I think we have to make a judgement call here: is there any kind of meaningful threshold we could agree upon, e.g. if 50%+1 people find a logo offensive, it has to get replaced? Or do we just ignore the crazies and get on with making the world a better place?
tsegratis 2y ago
puffin or pangolin? puffin would have double benefit of being better than a penguin
- tsegratis 2y ago
  and better looking :-) https://duckduckgo.com/?q=puffin&t=brave&iar=images&iax=images&ia=images https://duckduckgo.com/?q=puffin&t=brave&iar=images&iax=imag...
- BSDobelix 2y ago
  There is already a project with that mascot (PrestaShop): https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_computing_mascots https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_computing_mascots
boffinAudio 2y ago
If only there were a universally recognized icon that represented the Universal Declaration of Human Rights... seems to me, that would be a good logo to use for an operating system dedicated to freedom and collective competence.

latexr 2y ago

Reminded me of a similar story: https://web.archive.org/web/20120104013009/https://monster-island.org/tinashumor/humor/daemon.html https://web.archive.org/web/20120104013009/https://monster-i... Which reminded me of Bill Hicks: https://youtube.com/watch?v=I1_6FlQfbho https://youtube.com/watch?v=I1_6FlQfbho https://youtube.com/watch?v=oyWzSDg0pc8 https://youtube.com/watch?v=oyWzSDg0pc8

tmtvl 2y ago

Fun fact: the Belgian national football (association football, not rugger) team is called the Red Devils and fans will go to matches painted red, wearing horns, and carrying an inflatable trident.

gpderetta 2y ago
A red Devil is also the official mascot of the well known Italian AC Milan football club.
oneeyedpigeon 2y ago
Same for Manchester United, a team which literally has a red devil in its crest: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/7/7a/Manchester_United_FC_crest.svg/400px-Manchester_United_FC_crest.svg.png https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/7/7a/Manches...

bell-cot 2y ago

At n=1, you could try politely asking a customer how they feel about Duke University using "Blue Devils" as the name of their athletic teams, and adopting that name back when Duke itself was still named Trinity College. Do they avoid businesses with managers who graduated from Duke's business school, or churches with ministers who graduated from Duke's divinity school? Then there are all the American military squadrons and divisions and such which have nicknamed themselves the Red Devils... More soberly and at scale, one of the boring functions of real business managers is making sure that organization and product names, images, etc. are as inoffensive as possible to as many people as possible. Back in the '90's, when I first saw the Beastie and Tux mascots, my reaction was "one of these OS's wants to be used on 1% of computers, and the other wants to be used on 99% of computers".

oneeyedpigeon 2y ago
Or how they feel about eating deviled eggs... https://www.nola.com/entertainment_life/eat-drink/article_f20f92b5-e32b-5cc7-9e7c-91f02dc542f3.html https://www.nola.com/entertainment_life/eat-drink/article_f2...

LeonM 2y ago

Instead of trying to change the mascot, why not add a little "what is this?" button next to it, which when clicked explains that it is a mascot, not some devil's worship. Also, somehow I got the feeling that this hotel wasn't seriously going to lose business over the mascot. A 'long term guest' that is offended by something as innocent as a picture sure sounds to me like someone just trying get out of some obligation.

krapp 2y ago
That wouldn't change the mindset of the kind of person we're talking about. They would just assume you're worshiping the devil and lying about it.

wrp 2y ago

> a daemon, not the Devil. Many years ago, I was working in some Islamic countries where getting literature through customs was very hit and miss, depending on the religious sensibilities of the inspecting agent. I actually called the FreeBSD office and explained to someone that it would make my life easier if I could get copies of their material without their devil logo. The person I talked to was completely unsympathetic. "Just explain to them that it's a daemon, not a demon."

Yoric 2y ago
Pretty sure that Daemons (and all other supernatural creatures from Greek myths) would be frowned upon by a religious inspector from any Abrahamic religion.

josefritzishere 2y ago

hilarious