Linux Cult Brand Profile

As far back as the 1960s and the very beginning of the Internet, a sense of cooperation and brotherhood has always existed among computer programmers. However, as of 1990, computer geeks were still without a reliable and affordable operating system to “call their own.”

UNIX, widely used by engineers in universities and large corporations, was expensive to run and wasn’t intended for low-powered desktop machines. What were these frustrated programmers to do when they went home at night? In 1991, Linus Torvalds, a twenty-one-year-old college student, set out to change this picture and develop a “cheap alternative” to UNIX. In the summer of 1991, Torvalds posted version 0.01 of the kernel for a new, free, powerful operating system that he called Linux. Within very little time, programmers around the world started sending Torvalds snippets of code. Torvalds posted the source code in public view, and the programming community liked what they saw.

Today, Linux has millions of users around the world, and Torvalds is treated as a near-religious figure responsible for freeing a nation of engineers from their chains to sub-par operating systems.

The open source development process doesn’t discriminate. The best code always wins in the Linux nation, whether it comes from a fourteen-year-old kid in Buenos Aires or a fifty-year-old verteran programmer working for a major corporation. They know they will be judged by their peers by the quality of their work and their ideas, and not by their age, job title, background, or work experience.

In making Linux open source, Torvalds allowed its brand evangelists not only to make helpful suggestions, but to actually build it. They could see their thoughts and dreams in the form of lines of computer code being intertwined into the core of Linux. Piece by piece, they really were building an alternative to Windows.

Microsoft played right into the Linux movement’s hands, becoming the most visible representation of “the dark side.” In 2001, Microsoft CEO Steve Balmer stated that, “Linux is a cancer.” These types of public comments from the world’s largest software company only furthered the fervor and resolve of many open-source devotees. Every revolution needs a villain, and Microsoft’s critical public comments have only helped to unify the Linux brand.

By 1996, lively discussion had begun among open-source developers that the new operating system clearly needed to have its own mascot and logo. Ferocious animals like sharks, eagles, hawks, and foxes came up, but Torvalds hopped into the discussion and casually said to the open source community that he was rather fond of penguins.

A fun-loving penguin was the antithesis of the logos of other tech products: they were cold and corporate. The penguin screamed: We’re different! But Torvalds didn’t want just any penguin for the logo, he wanted one that “looked happy, as if it had just polished off a pitcher of beer and then had the best sex of its life.”

After Torvalds spoke his mind, and the Linux community agreed, an informal contest was held to select the exact penguin logo that Linux developers could rally behind. The eventual choice was a fun painting of a plump by content sitting penguin submitted by graphic artist Larry Ewing.

Today, the Linux Penguin appears in everything from IBM’s high profile campaigns to Linux T-Shirts, toys, and product packaging. The open source community has given the plump penguin its own name, Tux. The imaginary penguin is truly a star.