Date: Sat, 05 Apr 1997 15:34:18 -0700 From: mike allison <mallison@konnections.com> To: "Jordan K. Hubbard" <jkh@time.cdrom.com> Cc: Pedro Giffuni <pgiffuni@fps.biblos.unal.edu.co>, chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: BSD's Mascot Message-ID: <3346D36A.2E5F7DE4@konnections.com> References: <1637.860190691@time.cdrom.com>
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Free and Open computing is about offering a part of yourself for acceptance and free change/exchange with others. A part of that and a large part of UNIX is understanding the puns and wordplay within the system. As said before a demon (or daemon) can be good or evil. Their intention in UNIX is for good, but often they are the focal point of frustration. Although the word 'demon' goes back to the 16th or possibly the 15th century, it wwasn't until the late 17th and beginning of the 18th century, roughly 1640 - 1706 that the word truely came to denote an 'evil spirit'. "In Homer, there is scarcely any distinction between gods and daemons" -GROTE. "O' Anthony, Thy Daemon, that thy sirit which keeps thee, is Noble, Couragious, high unmatchable..." Anthoony & Cleopatra II.iii.19 If anyone is so narrow that they cannot accept the humor and wit which accompanies a system, and read something DEEP and DARK into that, well maybe they have bigger problems than which SCSI adapter to buy..... -Mike Jordan K. Hubbard wrote: > > > I read some time ago that the "deamons" used by BSD were not so devilish > > after all. The term deamon , in it's latin roots, refers to a higher > > power, good or bad. In UNIX it is recognized that there are good and bad > > deamons. > > Greg Lehey has a synopsis of this in his book. Indeed, they're not > devlish. > > > evil or devils, but probably our mascot will not gain acceptance in > > certain countries where religious issues are really important (Israel, > > Iran, Irak...). > > I can live with that. :-) > > Jordan
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