(Image credit: Tux Logo : By Larry Ewing, Simon Budig, Garrett LeSage)

Linux mascot Tux the penguin was first conceptualized on this day in 1996. In an email to a mailing list 30 years ago, Linus Torvalds informed the unwashed masses of his vision for a Linux logo prototype . It should be a contented, cute, and cuddly, slightly overweight penguin, he argued.

Dialing down the details, pivoting from a world map

Torvalds’ contextual sketching of Tux came in response to another developer who was talking about using a clipart concoction involving a map of the world to represent the open-source OS.

The Linux supremo was open to holding a logo competition, but instead of a complex encapsulation of the world as a logo, he proposed a penguin. Penguins embodied three positives, thought Torvalds , being universally considered cute, cuddly, and contented. The Linux founder wanted the penguin to be highly stylized, “not a lot of detail - just a black brush-type outline,” as per the logotype rule of thumb.…