Beastie isn't going anywhere. (Score 4, Informative)

From the Fine Article:

Q. Please save Beastie!

A. Beastie will continue to represent the FreeBSD Project as our mascot. We won't kill Beastie. The closest logo-like thing that we have now is shown below, and we are looking for other options to be used like there. The new logo design may or may not include Beastie, or even a stylized representation. Again, Beastie is still alive!

There are times when you want to present yourself with a logo, not with an image of the mascot. That's how I understood it, and to me it makes a lot of sense.

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Requiem for the FUD