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SuSE Businesses

SuSE 'Name-the-Mascot' Contest is Over 111

Posted by timothy from the everybody-deserves-a-name dept.
radja writes: "The SuSE chameleon has a new name: Geeko. E-mail to the winners was sent yesterday, so if you joined the contest, check your mail." Radja was pleasantly surprised to receive such mail, and looks forward to getting a plush Geeko and the coming 6.4 distro. Check out the results on the SuSE news page.
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SuSE 'Name-the-Mascot' Contest is Over More

SuSE 'Name-the-Mascot' Contest is Over

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  • SUSE - Geeko Mozilla's layout engine: Gecko Hmm...
  • They should have called it Karma.

  • What's idiomatic German for "geek" (in the "tech-loving" sense, not the "circus" sense) ?

  • noooooo (Score:2)

    by Anonymous Coward
    But the lizard depicted in the logo is a chameleon. "geeko" is meant to be like "gecko" and that's NOT a gecko. :(
  • reminds me of "newt", the unofficial short for the newton messagepad...

    What does however constitute a good mascot name for a piece of software??
    should it be cool, simple or cute??

    seems like the opensource/linux comunity is collecting cute mascots (with tux offcourse being my favourite...)

    One positive side of cute mascots, are that it makes it so much easier to get your girlfriend agree to have nerd merchendise laying around :)
  • You know that movie with Charlie Sheen and his son and Michael Douglas (Wall Street?)

    I know the spelling is wrong but thats what I saw when I first saw the name.

    Bad choice. It wreaks of greed.

  • Re:noooooo (Score:3)

    by Creosote ( 33182 ) on Wednesday March 01, 2000 @07:01AM (#1235058) Homepage
    Ah, but the SuSE chameleon is so highly evolved that it can change not only its color but its species in order to blend in with its surroundings. In a geek environment, perforce it becomes a geeko.
  • I think they're taking a tip from Tarzan (with his pet monkey, Cheetah)...
  • No! You think of Richard Geeko, that actor-wannabe.
  • Geek-o? ;-)
  • Somehow, though, "Geeko the chameleon" sounds better than "Geeko the gecko". It has a better rhythm.
    I think that I just prefer things ending in "eon" to things enging in "o", too:)
  • I do not like the name... It would be ok if the mascot was a Gecko, but it is not. It is clearly a Jackson's Chameleon species Chaemeleo jacksonii.

    I would think that this would be a gross oversight and the name be reconsidered.

  • 'cos with open source you can see right inside baby!
    .oO0Oo.
  • Hmmm, that's a tough one. I can't think of anything that describes the full meaning of "geek" in German. "Geek" and "nerd" are both words that I believe are used in German, b/c if you try to translate it, you end up with something along the lines of "you know, a pale skinny guy with coke-bottle-glasses, physcially attached to a keyboard (the geek, not the coke-bottle-glasses, these are attached to the screen) of a computer, who doesn't have a life and spends all his waking hours in front of the computer, cranking code or playing MUDS. It's obviously not necessary to mention he can't get a girlfriend. Has pimply skin, most likely, too."

    The German language is designed to make loooooooong long complicated sentences. Putting all this information into one short word, doesn't make sense to Germans.

    :-)

  • cute (Score:3)

    by jschauma ( 90259 ) on Wednesday March 01, 2000 @07:16AM (#1235070) Homepage
    Ever since I read Linus' explanation why he chose the Penguin or what the mascott should look like, I can't help but keep thinking of Tux as happy in just-got-laid-happy.
    This won't work with Geeko, I think...

  • and (Score:2)

    by jrs ( 27486 )
    geeko was his nameo
  • Well, in the Parker Lewis series that ran a few years ago, geek translated to "Geek" and nerd translated to "Nerd". (Of course, it would have to be spelt "Giik" and "Nörd" to come out properly).
  • I never looked at it like that. Hmm, time to sue ? :-)
  • Now that they have a name, Geeko, Bah!, The thing is that now that they've named it Geeko, they'll have to somehow figure out how to make it wear thick black BC glasses and a pocket protector so he'll conform to the expectations of the rest of the country.

    Or, perhaps, if they're really smart, they'll make him into a geek pocket protector, so that he's peering over the top of a pocket, with a couple holes for pens, a small LCD/clock oriented upwards, 4MB of RAM for MP3s and of course, a hole small enough to be reserved for a stylus. They could give these away at the next Linux World.

  • I saw one of the other top suggestions they got was "Suzi/Susie" or a variation on that. I would have preferred that. Not only is it less geeky, it might have some kind of appeal to those members, or potential members, of the Linux community who have 2 X chromosomes.

    We seem to heave a dearth of "cool" (to the masses) mascots. Sure, there's Tux, but then there's also the dude in the red fedora. Geeko falls somewhere in the middle for me. We need more Tux-like creatures. Maybe Susie coulda been a girlfriend for him or something. Don't get me wrong, I'm a geek and proud of it. But I'd like to see what would happen with Tux, Susie (if they had made that the mascot) and the BSD Daemon if they got together and partied. The possibilities are limitless!

  • hope that's not really their thoughts... because that's actually not how the chameleon uses its colors :)
    A chameleon uses it colors to show it's mood, or to darken itself to collect more heat...
    Different species of chameleons have different color schemes based on the surroundings they live in.. these will not change if you change the habitat...

  • My suggestion was SUX (Score:3)

    by nospoon ( 126741 ) on Wednesday March 01, 2000 @07:43AM (#1235079)
    as in Suse + Linux = Sux...

    I thought it was funny.

  • LAME (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    This is retarded..

    There are many reasons why this is a horrible name...

    First of all, it is only natural to assume that "Geeko" is a play on the words "geek" and "gecko". This would be great, except that THE LOGO IS NOT A FREAKIN' GECKO!!! OK? HOW MANY TIMES DO WE HAVE TO TELL YOU IDIOTS!!! IT IS A CHAMELEON!!! This makes absolutely no sense.. Do we call the Linux penguin "Ducky"? NO, that would be absolutely ridiculous, because it is OBVIOUSLY not a duck!! It's a penguin!!!

    I'm sorry, but I would never consider using a linux distribution if the developers don't even know what kind of animal their logo is. This just makes them look stupid, and it makes the linux community look stupid.

    Besides, I hate the whole linux-geek association.

  • Karma fits better with the chameleon, and certainly, Slashdot. But Geeko fits better with the Open Source roots of Linux.

    I wonder if they can change their mind? I think it's a poor choice. Instead of trying to force the lizard(or whatever) motif, they could've went with something a little bit different, maybe something with the color, who knows.

  • Websters 1913 unabridged:


    Note: Its color changes more or less with the color of the objects about it, or with its temper when disturbed.


    cheese
  • I don't get it. They stress how it's a chameleon, and not a gecko or iguana or turtle or dinosaur, and now they do this?

    Blah. I think they should have just called it "SuSE" (pronounced "sooz", not "susie"). Heck, they even said that that "Suse" or "Suze" is a German female name! I think it would have been perfect, and would be appropriate because of SuSE's country-of-origin and strong following among European Linuxers. "Geeko" is just a horrible pun (and an incorrect one because it's not a freakin' gecko!).

    They may regret this. Now it will be known as "Gecko Linux". SuSE had better add "gecko" to the meta-keywords on their homepage, or they're going to lose customers to other companies -- like Red Hat, whose mascot is... a red hat! See, simple is good!

    Heh, there's a SuSE banner ad at the top of my page. The poor little chameleon... damned to a life of having a bad name, because of some dumb contest! :-(

    I am the Lord.

  • IMHO The best name I ever heard was greptile. It's not my idea but I heard someone mention it at the beginning of this contest and thouhgt to myself, "well, contest over." But that's just my take on the situation.

    Somebody's got to have some coffee around here somewhere. -me in the morning.

  • Martin is the father, Charlie is the kid.

    cheese
  • That was great.
  • couldn't have said it better...
  • i like the name... too bad i didn't come up with it... and the price would have been mine... what's the price anyway?
  • Therefore, does a truly disturbed Chameleon show its true colors? :)

    (And what happens if it's only 8-bit?)

  • Well I've never seen a penguin that looked like tuxedo (or a pink torpedo for that matter).

    And if we called the penguin "Ducky" that would actually be pretty funny. No one would mistake a penguin for a duck, so it is funny.

    I agree with geeko being an awful name. I suggested "Joe"

    cheese
  • Karma chameleon sounds best. Wasn't there a song like that...

    Cami, Eesa, Ana, Nina and Kili are her sisters. (key lee)

    Geek-o with the dash would have been better.

    Cold blooded reptiles taste good in a marinade of backed-up binary broth.

    How well does it scale? Hahahah....

    I call soo-za susi. What do you call it?

  • I can't complain (Score:5)

    by jd ( 1658 ) <imipak@yahoGINSBERGo.com minus poet> on Wednesday March 01, 2000 @08:20AM (#1235096) Homepage Journal
    I didn't enter, so what right do I have to say that the name they picked was wrong? I had my chance to speak up, and chose not to.

    On the other hand, I think that they'll honestly regret calling it Geeko. I think that's going to be a "one-day wonder". By this time tomorrow, I suspect few (if any) will use that name. Anyone who uses a name at all will use their own.

    Personally, I think the mascot looks more like a piece of "ancient world" art, and a name that reflected longevity would do much better than a slang term that's already out-dated and passing into oblivion.

    (How many IT Department employees are still called the Backroom Boys? Boffins? Egg-heads? Nerds are now a type of candy, and Geek is over-due for the dustbin.)

    Hey, this leads me into a REAL "name-the" competition. What should above-average tech folk be called? If all the older terms are either dead as a doornail, sexist, or both, what would be a great, collective way to describe such people?

  • Geeko.. interesting. YOu all know of course this is going to go downhill, into all sorts of ugly marketing wars now.. Perhaps we can have a Distro mascot fighting game, or even a popular japanese cartoon ripoff, Distromon. "Mozillarian, i choose you." I can see it now. Linux breakfast cerial? im not holding my breath.. marshmellow kernels and Korn puffs. And of course on the back, besides only telling you the ingrediants, they tell you how to make the cerial, and give you a place to post improvements...
  • Maybe Susie coulda been a girlfriend for him or something.

    Fire up your copy of Tux A Quest for Herring with the right command line argument and instead of Tux you get his girlfriend, Gown.

    Which doesn't rule out Susie as a girlfriend, I have no preconceptions about penguin polygamy or polyandry.

  • Re:I don't like it. (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    It's not Soos, it's Sus-a. It's an acronym for German words. Call the company. It's definately Sus-a.
  • Geeko fits better with the Open Source roots of Linux.

    No. There are non-Open-Source geeks. Contary to what Rob would have you think. ;-)

    Also, Open Source "roots"?!? Linux is still Open Source, is it not? So not just its roots but its branches and leaves are OSS? And hopefully GPL with keep it that way?

    Karma fits better with the chameleon . . .

    Finally, we agree on something. "Karma" is my second choice (behind "Suse") because of the nice alliteration, and because it would endear the mascot to the millions of children of the eighties (like me). "Karma" is also reminiscent of good times, when it became a buzzword associated with the Eastern religions which grew in popularity in Europe and the US in the 1960s and 70s. I think "Karma" would have given it a nice vibe. "Peace! Love! Linux!"

    Obviously "karma" also has connotations as am actual religious term, but it doesn't have to be a positive thing (especially on Slashdot), so we won't go there.

    I am the Lord.

  • p.s. I have a beanie baby named Munchie that looks much more like the Suse chameleon logo then their 'plush toy'. Although the Beanie people had already named it 'Rainbow', which is a stupid name for a chameleon.

    I have that same one, and you're right on both counts: the name "rainbow" is dumb, but it looks exactly like SuSE (I will not call it "Geeko"!) It's too bad SuSE can't get a licensing deal, like the Toronto Blue Jays did. Alas, that would cost megabucks, which I'm not sure SuSE has.

    Munchie is a nice name though. :-)

    I am the Lord.

  • I was almost too disgusted to laugh... almost... :-)

    I am the Lord.

  • When I was younger (and I mean like 10) I had a pocket protector. I filled it up with pens (just like that guy in "Revenge of the Nerds") and actually wore it to school for a while. (Coupled with my red suspenders covered with Super Mario pins, I was bad off. :-) I'd love to get one with SuSE on it, and I use FreeBSD! Cool idea.

    I am the Lord.

  • There is a "german" translation for geek, but no, it is not entirely german...

    Its computerfreak that comes closest, and it can even be understood by english speakers as well.

    This shows well that there are no new words in german: we'll almost always glue a few old words together to get a new one (like the famous Donaudampfschifffahrtsgesellschaftskapitän) or just use the foreign word.

    To make it worse, even the term hacker is often used when we try to name geeks or nerds.

  • Chameleons aren't reptiles. They're vegetables.

    I am the Lord.

  • hmm.. i have a chameleon as a pet, and all of my litterature states that it's a myth...??

    Its most likely that people have thought this was true, because the chameleon actually changes it's colors when changing habitat, ie. crawling from a tree down to sand, but this just temporary, and due to the fact that it is a very sensitive animal which gets stressed (and thus changes colors) with even the slightes changes in it's enviroment...

  • ugh (Score:3)

    by gargle ( 97883 ) on Wednesday March 01, 2000 @08:49AM (#1235111) Homepage
    I believe I speak for everyone when I say: UGH
  • Geeko fits better with the total lack of marketing know-how most geeks have. No wonder they picked it.

    --
  • >Hey, this leads me into a REAL "name-the" competition.
    >What should above-average tech folk be called? If all the
    >older terms are either dead as a doornail, sexist,
    >or both, what would be a great, collective way to describe
    >such people?

    I believe that would be 'underpaid' and/or 'overworked'. :)

    ikaros, a little of both.

  • First of all it's a chameleon not a gecko. And it's putrid for so many other reasons. They should have called it "hey we're smoking powdered drain cleaner again"
  • Given that much is still being learned in the field of herpetology in general, and chameleons specifically, a reference from 1913 is virtually a dinosaur. Current opinion is that the creatures don't change color to suit their background, but to absorb heat, indicate health and mood, and to express territorialism. Chameleons (and anoles and to a lesser extent iguanids) have special color-changing cells called chromatophores. In some species, the range of colors they produce is extraordinary (like panther chameleons), others are limited to only subtle variations on a general theme.

  • Re:I can't complain (Score:3)

    by Kaufmann ( 16976 ) <rnedal&olimpo,com,br> on Wednesday March 01, 2000 @09:19AM (#1235118) Homepage
    What should above-average tech folk be called? If all the older terms are either dead as a doornail, sexist, or both, what would be a great, collective way to describe such people?

    Um, "hackers"?

  • World's Deadliest Naming Contests (Score:4)

    by planet_hoth ( 3049 ) on Wednesday March 01, 2000 @09:21AM (#1235120)
    Other Failed SuSE Mascot Names

    *Dorko

    *Nerdo

    *David Hasslehoff (already taken)

    *Phil, the Pants Lizard

    *Monica
  • Barf! Puke! Hurl! Spewosity Up-throw!
    I don't believe it. How crap a name could you possibly have thought of? So crap it could only have been thought of by Mr. Crap, of 43 Crapston Terrace, Crappytown, Crapshire in the land of Crap.
    What a dumb name...

  • One wonders if we will now see a variation on those Geico auto insurance TV ads. "I am Geeko, mascot for SuSE Linux, not to be confused with Geico, the auto insurance company that can save you blah blah blah... So please stop calling me asking how to recompile your Linux kernel!"
  • What *does* that say, and what's the foreign word for it?

    Babelfish translates "Donaudampfschifffahrtsgesellschaftskapitän" to Danube steam navigation society captain, which is an interesting guess, but... well, I figured out the "captain" part, but that's all I'm sure of...

    "Hacker" is a pretty decent word to pick, it's just a little overloaded in English.
    ---
    pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate [152.7.41.11].
  • I think the name geeko is very appropriate for SuSE. Their logo and their marketing needs lots of improvement, so I was quite sure they'd find some stupid name for the ugly mascot. I am surprised that the name is not "susi" or "suzy" or so...

  • Re: Donaudampfschifffahrtsgesellschaftskapitän (Score:3)

    by Vlad_the_Inhaler ( 32958 ) on Wednesday March 01, 2000 @10:42AM (#1235129)
    It is the German equivalent of antidisestablishmentarian, simply the longest word in the language.

    The 'Donaudampfschiffahrtsgesellschaft' was the 'Danube steamship company', an Austrian company that closed down 2 or 3 years ago after having existed for over 100 years. As to the 'kapitän' bit, you got it.
  • Pathetic. They went with an overly gratuitous techfashion catch-phrase. They'd be well advised to give out the prizes and do the contest all over again.

  • I had my chance to speak up, but I wasn't feeling very magnanimous that day:)

    And anyways, what kind of connotations do they want with their name? Yeah, sure, the gekkonidae are fast, agile, and can climb any obstacle, but for reptiles they're really, really noisy. Much better the connotations of family Chamaleonidae, known for fragility in captivity, imitation, 'conspicuous ornamentation', and... well...

    ...They're good at catching bugs... and doesn't "Elly" or "Elea" or "Leonid" sound much better? (or Chum or Susy or Rutabaga or really just about anything else?) Where is SuSE's sense of esthetics? Come one, it sounds like "eek!" Why would anyone want something that sounds like...oh. never mind.

  • You know, comments like that hurt. Do you really want to hurt me?
  • Hmmm... nerds has been a candy for what... 15 years now? I remember eating them in grade school... mmm sugar.

    Geek is a little old, though I'm glad it no longer refers to biting chicken or snake heads off...

  • (mha@suse.de)

    I have to admit, SuSE started to care about an easier installation pretty late. Even the character based Yast (1) installation was/is needlessly complex (no workflow!). Our development team thought, installation is just once, but you use the system for a long time, and that's where most of the energy was spend: inside.

    While I haven't tried it myself, I've heard a lot of good things about the new version of Yast II that's going to be on SuSE Linux 6.4 - from installation supporters, those guys that I really believe, because they have to suffer first when something doesn't work.

    Anyway, I still think we've got a lot to offer, not just size (amount of packages). The best thing for servers will be the pair LVM (logical volume manager) and journaling reiserfs in 6.4. The advantage of journaling is well-known, and for those who don't know, with an LVM you can enlarge partitions on the fly (by adding hard disks and having a virtual partition as a volume group), and with reiserfs you can actually really use this LVM stuff without reformating (ext2 filesystems cannot grow). That's very, very good for servers!
    --
    Michael Hasenstein
    http://www.suse.de/~mha/ [www.suse.de]

  • New name? How about new mascot?! (Score:3)

    by / ( 33804 ) on Wednesday March 01, 2000 @01:42PM (#1235140)
    This is not a troll or flamebait. I respect SuSE. I really do. Anyone who can win a landwar in Europe the way they have against RedHat has to be doing something right.

    With that said, I must now vent against SuSE's mascot, which to me (and lots of other people, I assume) looks like a green turd with legs and a face. Everyone knows Shakespeare's quote that a rose by any other name would smell as sweet, and most people know the common variation on that quote about excrement smelling just as sweet, and I for one find it quite appropos here.

    RedHat's shadowman is somehow mysterious. Tux is adorable. The idea of a chameleon has a lot of promise, both for its symbolism and because it has a lot of untapped cuteness-value that could be unearthed and exploited (and maybe plush stuffed-animals is a step in the right direction). But please, SuSE, give the lizard a makeover.

    And lest anyone think it's just a crappy slashdot rendition, here's [suse.de] the actual logo from SuSE's website).
    For comparison, an actual green chameleon from Kenya [gorp.com]. Real chameleons are adroit climbers and skillful hunters with long strong muscular legs. SuSE's chameleon is perched on two pairs of stubby little legs (grossly out of proportion with the rest of its body) and sadly looks like it's about to fall over and die from asphyxiation like a sheep lying on its back. SuSE's chameleon wouldn't have a chance in hell of surviving in the wild (compared with, say, Tux [extremelinux.org] as portrayed on extremelinux.com), which is not the message that we'd like to send about SuSE's distribution in particular or about Linux in general.

    And as for the name, that issue's been beaten to death already. Alas, crappy ideas never die in the minds of marketers.
  • > I believe I speak for everyone when I say: UGH

    It's better than Nerdo or Spoddo... :-)
  • No. There are non-Open-Source geeks. Contary to what Rob would have you think. ;-)

    sure, geek != OSS hacker; however, OSS hacker == geek, so it's still apropriate :)

  • Though following the "new" German orthography it should be Donaudampfschiffarhrtsgesellschaftskapitän .

    while we're at the topic, a long long time ago I came across the famous Zweihunderttausendbruttoregistertonnenöltankerunte roffizier in some Donald-Duck-comic...

  • It's actually "Shadowman", who wears a red hat.

    To be even more accurate, it's Shadowman's disembodied head. ("Larry Augustin sleeps with the fishes!")

    I am the Lord.

  • Well, if that's how you pronounce the name, then the mascot should really be a giant foot...

    o/~ Insert Liberty Bell March Here o/~

  • I have a beanie baby named Munchie that looks much more like the Suse chameleon logo then their 'plush toy'.

    Check out a picture of the SuSE doll at this link:

    http://www.suse.de /en/news/news/newproduct/chamaeleon/index.html [www.suse.de]

    It really does look horrid.

    I am the Lord.

  • I knew it was an acronym, but I stand corrected on the pronunciation. Quoting from the SuSE "About Us" page, it's "pronounced "SUE-zuh," like John Phillip Sousa." Thanks for pointing that out.

    I am the Lord.

  • First of all, it is only natural to assume that "Geeko" is a play on the words "geek" and "gecko". This would be great, except that THE LOGO IS NOT A FREAKIN' GECKO!!! OK? HOW MANY TIMES DO WE HAVE TO TELL YOU IDIOTS!!! IT IS A CHAMELEON!!! This makes absolutely no sense..

    Technically, it's not a chameleon either, it's just a logo. Get over it.
  • Too bad...My suggestion was Klaus-Dieter Von dem Ast. Klaus-Dieter is a nerdy German name--possibly given by FDP-voting parents and Von dem Ast is a play on the literal translation "from the branch", as such creatures hang out on tree branches. But "Von dem X" is also in the form of an old royalty title, as the nobility were always "From X" or "From the X" instead of a name that suggested a trade. But such obvious ironic hilarity goes right by most Germans. Now that I've explained it, most English-speakers are rolling on the ground laughing. But the Germans? Noooo....
  • I am not German but I play one when we choose up sides and play war here in the neighborhood.... Geek might be Fachidiot, which usually means idiot savant, but is rarely used in the medical way, but instead used to describe someone who is hard after some narrow field of study or work--to the exclusion of all else. Actually, I'm curious about Computerkultur in Germany. I know they don't have the stark Dilbert v. Pointy-haired Boss dynamic as much as we Amis do. Anyone out there can enlighten me....
  • ...Open Source roots...

    Linux is free software, not Open Source. Open Source is not a philosphy, it is a business model, and hence uninteresting.

  • But I'd like to see what would happen with Tux, Susie (if they had made that the mascot) and the BSD Daemon if they got together and partied.
    The fruit of such relations against nature would be forbidden.

    • Germans have had the Beer Purity Law since the 1500s.
    • The European Union aren't fond of those transgenic chimeras.
    • Besides you couldn't patent it in Europe.

    --

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