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‎README.md‎

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# The Perl Logo
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## The Repository
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### Purpose
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The purpose of the `perl-assets` repository is to create a home for a new,
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updated Perl logo. One which the Perl communities are free to use and
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encouraged to create derivative works from. This logo is hereby released under
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CC-BY. We hope that you will take it, use it and make it your own.
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### How it's Organized
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There are several folders:
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- `./base` contains the original camel artwork. This is the camel which is the
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source of the more polished artwork which is found elsewhere. All art in this
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repository is licensed under CC-BY, so you are free to use these images as
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source material.
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- `./experimental` contains experiments from which were used in coming up with
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final logo designs.
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- `./blessed` contains the "official" logos. If you are designing icons for an
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Operating System, an IDE or need a `favicon.ico`, we would ask you to draw
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from these assets.
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### Attribution
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If you are working in a medium where you can add an attribution, please link
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back to <https://perl.org>.
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### Our Attributions
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Since we are asking for attribution, it's only fair for us to do the same. The
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camel design was created for us by [Zach
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Roszczewski](https://www.zachroszczewski.com) and commissioned by Neil Bowers.
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The original concepts were iterated upon based on feedback from Neil Bowers,
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Babs Veloso and Olaf Alders.
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The blessed and experimental logos are the work of Sébastien Feugère.
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Feedback on Sébastien Feugère's work was kindly given (in first name
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alphabetical order) by:
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- Aristotle Pagaltzis
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- Bruno Meneguele
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- D Ruth Holloway
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- Dallas Hogan
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- Graham Knop
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- Kenta Kobayashi
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- Leo Lapworth
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- Makoto Nozaki
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- Marc Perry
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- Mohammad Anwar
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- Philippe Bruhat
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- Robert Spier
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- Thibault Duponchelle
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## The Backstory
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The story of Perl's logo has been well documented. An excellent starting point
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is Neil Bowers' blog post from December of 2020:
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- [https://neilb.org/2020/12/04/perl-and-camels.html](https://neilb.org/2020/12/04/perl-and-camels.html)
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A quick summary of Neil's post is:
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### History of the Camel Symbol
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- **The Camel**: In 1991, O'Reilly published *Programming Perl*, the first
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major book about the Perl language. Like other O'Reilly books, it featured an
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animal on the cover, and for Perl, it was a camel. This led to a
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long-standing association between camels and Perl.
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- **Other Logos**: Over the years, other logos like an onion (connected to
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Larry Wall's "State of the Onion" talks) and a velociraptor were used in some
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contexts, but the camel has remained the most iconic symbol.
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### O'Reilly's Position
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- Neil B reached out to Tim O'Reilly to clarify the situation, as various
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rumors about O'Reilly’s stance on using the camel logo had circulated.
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- **Tim O'Reilly's Statement**: O'Reilly confirmed that Perl cannot use the
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specific camel image from the *Programming Perl* book, but a new camel image
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could be used. The key restriction is that no other publisher can use a camel
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on the cover of a book about Perl, which limits its commercial use.
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### A New Camel for Perl
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- Neil B suggests that Perl could adopt a new camel logo—separate from the one
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used on O'Reilly's book cover—and use it as the official symbol for the Perl
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language.
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- The goal is to create a logo that represents not just the language but also
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the community, one that feels friendly and welcoming.
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- Neil B acknowledges that the "camel association" will always be tied to Perl,
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even if a new logo is chosen. He suggests this is a pragmatic approach,
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emphasizing that the restrictions around using camels on books are not a
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major issue.
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## What About the Onion?
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The onion is the logo for [The Perl and Raku
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Foundation](https://www.perlfoundation.org/trademarks.html). BooK discussed the
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onion logo with Allison Randal (who had just finished her tenure as president of the Perl Foundation) during an interview at OSCON Europe in October
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2005.
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Here's a transcript:
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> - Philippe
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> And what about the logo? Personally, I saw it as a way to become more
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> independent from the O'Reilly legalese and the fact that everywhere you use
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> the Camel you need to acknowledge the fact that the Camel is a trademark of
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> O'Reilly. But is there something else?
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> - Allison
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> Well, that is a nice side effect. The main thing is that because of the
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> trademark relationship, there's a few places where we really *can't* use
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> the Camel at all. Say, if we published a collection of Perl documentation
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> or something like that, we really could not use the Camel in that context.
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> Because that's the one that O'Reilly is protecting it for.
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> So we started the process just to give us another option in a few places.
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> But as we go on it seems to have kind of taken a life of its own. It's been
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> showing up on YAPC T-shirts and things like that.
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> - Philippe
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> It's a nice logo, because the onion has been part of Larry's talks for a
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> while, so it's already part of the culture.
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> - Allison
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> Yeah. We spent a good deal of time looking for the right logo. We tried a
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> whole bunch of different things. At the very beginning we thought "Not an
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> onion, because it doesn't make a very good logo." We looked for something
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> else and just kept coming back to the onion because of that connection to
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> Perl history. Then we found an artist who did an onion that we liked so we
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> went with it.
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> - Who's the author of the onion?
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> His name is Devin Shane Muldoon. He's an artist in the San Francisco area.
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> He's really talented.
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A [French translation of the
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interview](https://articles.mongueurs.net/interviews/randal-2005.html) was
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published in GNU/Linux Magazine France in 2006.
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## See also
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- <https://dev.to/thibaultduponchelle/the-perl-complex-topic-of-logos-3161>
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- <https://dev.to/smonff/notes-about-the-ongoing-perl-logo-discussion-4c80>
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- <https://youtu.be/areXIy7UKyA?si=IRyarBguLwCuBXtd&t=1701>
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## FAQ
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- Will the logos change?
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We currently consider this artwork to be production ready, but also a work in
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progress. We may alter the logos moving forward if we see a need, but we
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don't imagine radical changes to be forthcoming.
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- Who put you in charge?
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Nobody. Traditionally things happen in Perl because somebody does something
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and enough other people think it's worth adopting. It's in this spirit that
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the logo is being presented. Our hope is that all (or most) of us can
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standardize on the same artwork. This current working group arose out of a
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conversation at the 2024 Perl Toolchain Summit in Lisbon. We felt we had
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enough stakeholders in the same room to come to an agreement in principle and
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then move ahead with the project.
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- Can I Put This on a T-shirt, Mug or Candle?
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Yes!
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- Can I Put This on a Book About Perl?
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No. Our understanding of O'Reilly's position is that we are free to use a
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camel in association with Perl, with the exception of books about Perl. See
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L<https://neilb.org/2020/12/04/perl-and-camels.html> for more details.

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