Here's the story on Tux the Penguin. Untill today, I didn't even know that the penguin had a name. ;)
Any ways, on with the show. This article was taken from:
http://www.wired.com/news/linux/0,1411,42209,00.html
2:00 a.m. Mar. 13, 2001 PST
by Michelle Delio
One of the first questions asked by mainstream technology companies beginning to offer Linux products or services is, "Who owns the penguin?"
The answer is no one. The Linux logo, a plump penguin known as Tux, is an open-source image.
Anyone can employ Tux to promote a Linux-related product, and there are no licensing fees or any need to get official approval from someone to use the penguin.
...But allowing people to add, alter and tinker with Tux has turned the portly penguin into a widely recognized logo, minus the usually high development costs that are invested into corporate design.
"Tux is an excellent proof of concept of the whole rationale behind open source and free software development," said Marco Pastore, an open source programmer. "Release your creation to the community, let them do with it as they see fit, and you'll end up with something wonderful."
Tux is not the product of an advertising agency, and no money was invested into his development. Artist Larry Ewing first drew him in 1996 when developers began to feel that one of the things that Linux really needed was a logo.
Ewing designed Tux using GIMP (The GNU Image Manipulation Program), an illustration program that comes with many GNU/Linux distributions.
On his website, Ewing grants everyone permission to use and modify the Tux image as they see fit, but he requests that he and GIMP be given credit "if someone asks."
The penguin concept was picked from the crowd of other logo contenders when it became apparent that Linus Torvalds, creator of the Linux kernel, had a "fixation for flightless, fat waterfowl," said Jeff Ayers, a Linux programmer.
Linus Torvalds has claimed, in various posts to Linux kernel discussion groups over the years, to have been attacked by a "ferocious penguin that bit me and infected me with a little known disease called penguinitis.
"Penguinitis makes you stay awake at nights just thinking about penguins and feeling great love towards them."
Torvalds later said that while he did indeed have a close and personal encounter with a penguin, the bird wasn't ferocious, and just timidly nibbled on Torvald's finger.
The general consensus among the Linux development community is that Torvalds was never attacked, nibbled, or otherwise molested by a penguin, but became fixated on Tux because a fat penguin wasn't a typical corporate logo, a theory that has been backed by later statements from Torvalds.
I also suffer from Penguinitis. It's very contagious and there is currently no cure for this disease. ;)
Remote_Access_
