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Time is right for OpenSolaris mascot

Stephen Shankland Former Principal Writer
Stephen Shankland worked at CNET from 1998 to 2024 and wrote about processors, digital photography, AI, quantum computing, computer science, materials science, supercomputers, drones, browsers, 3D printing, USB, and new computing technology in general. He has a soft spot in his heart for standards groups and I/O interfaces. His first big scoop was about radioactive cat poop.
Expertise Processors, semiconductors, web browsers, quantum computing, supercomputers, AI, 3D printing, drones, computer science, physics, programming, materials science, USB, UWB, Android, digital photography, science. Credentials
  • Shankland covered the tech industry for more than 25 years and was a science writer for five years before that. He has deep expertise in microprocessors, digital photography, computer hardware and software, internet standards, web technology, and more.
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Stephen Shankland

Sun Microsystems is hoping its efforts to reinvigorate Solaris will make it a more viable competitor to Linux. But wouldn't it be easier to visualize that competition if the Solaris camp could attack with something more animate than 5 million lines of source code?

Happily, now that Solaris has begun its metamorphosis into the OpenSolaris open-source project, it's possible there could soon be an OpenSolaris mascot to take on Linux's penguin, Tux.

"We did have a conversation on a mascot a couple of months ago, but decided to shelve it till we were open so the larger community could participate in the discussion," said Jim Grisanzio, organizer of the OpenSolaris pilot project, in a note to an OpenSolaris mailing list Tuesday. "Let's see what crops up."

Other open-source operating system mascots that could enter the fray include Beastie, the BSD Daemon, the GNU wildebeest, Hexley the platypus for the open-source Darwin core to Mac OS X, the OpenBSD blowfish, and Geeko, the chameleon some say is named after Suse Linux leader Juergen Geck.