Taking advantage of the fact that my partner Pablinux involuntarily resurrected the question about the true nature of the Firefox logo, that Sunday is an ideal day for light reading and, that my main computer is in technical service with everything I need to finish the series on Jekyll, now is a good time to do a brief summary of the history of the most famous mascot in the world of free software and open source.
The history of Tux
In chronological order, Tux was not the first mascot of the free software world. However, since it is the most popular, let me start with the penguin.
LThe idea of using this animal as a mascot for the Linux kernel was, unsurprisingly, by Linus Torvalds. Over time he gave three different explanations. The most popular account that:
I've always loved penguins, and when I was in Canberra a few years ago we went to the local zoo. They had a ferocious penguin there that bit me and gave me a little-known disease called "penguinitis." "Penguinitis" makes you stay up at night just thinking about penguins and feeling great love for them. So when Linux needed a pet, the first thing that came to mind was this image of the majestic penguin, and the rest is history.
He later recounted what actually happened:
Yes, I was bitten by a penguin, but in truth, it wasn't very fierce. It was actually a 15-inch or so pygmy penguin, and it was rather a shy bite ("Is this finger in front of me a little fish, or what?"). Still, I really like penguins.
Eventually, he would end up acknowledging that he simply liked penguins. And he didn't like boring tech company logos.
Dealt makes it clear that not just any penguin would do, which is why he urged the developers to focus on creating the image of a cute and happy cuddly penguin. He even went so far as to define why the penguin was happy, giving two options; either he had just had sex or he was full of herring.
Trust me, I'm a penguin expert, those are really the only two options.
However, he suggested that, While some developers might sympathize with the idea of a horny penguin, the best was the all-ages option of a penguin stuffed with herring.
Thus, he asked to be imagined as a little overweight animal, sitting down after filling himself with his favorite food and finishing burping. He is sitting with a beatific smile as the world is a good place to be when you have just eaten a few pounds of raw fish and you can feel another burp coming.
Perhaps thinking that the sale of the dolls could be a good way to finance the project, he told the developers that they would know that he had a successful design - little children would jump and scream asking their mothers to buy him one.
The design we know of was created using Gimp by Larry Ewing who authorizes its use as long as the creator and the program used are mentioned.
To define the name the developers held a contest while Linus was busy with something else. The story goes that he could have been called Homer, for some he reminded some of a Homer Simpson in the form of a bird that instead of donuts was lost for herring.
Finally one formed by letters of the words Torvald's Unix (The Unix of Torvalds.
Salt
As a curious fact, it must be said that Tux took a vacation in 2009 for Linux kernel version 2.6.29. His place was taken by Tuz, a Tasmanian devil wearing a penguin mask.
Tuz was first created as a mascot for the Linux Australia conference held that same year. The change was to spread the request for the extinction of this species motivated by a highly contagious variety of cancer.