Puffy (mascot)

Puffy is the mascot of the free operating system OpenBSD. Puffy is a porcupinefish, which is used to signify the intention of the developers to make an impregnably secure operating system.

Puffy is also the mascot of the child projects of OpenBSD: OpenSSH, OpenNTPD, OpenCVS, OpenOSPFD and OpenBGPD. Puffy was selected because of the blowfish algorithm used in OpenSSH and the strongly defensive image of the porcupinefish, whose spikes help deter predators. He quickly became very popular, mainly because of the cute image of the fish and his distinction from the beastie used by FreeBSD, the horde of daemons then used by NetBSD, and Tux, the Linux penguin. Although Puffy is usually said to be a pufferfish, in fact pufferfish do not possess spikes; images of Puffy are closer to a similar species, the porcupinefish.

Puffy is a popular motif on T-shirts and posters of the project, and also appears in songs which are released along with the operating system. Puffy made his first public appearance in OpenBSD 2.6. Since his conception, each release has seen a different version of Puffy presented on t-shirts and posters. These include:
* Pufferix and Bobilix delivering The Three Discs of Freedom
* Doctor Puffystein - A genius doctor, fighting The Blob through reverse engineering
* Puffiana Jones - famed hackologist and adventurer, seeking out the Lost RAID
* Puffathy - a little Alberta girl, who must work with Taiwan to save the day
* Pond-erosa Puff - a no-guff freedom fighter from the wild west, set to hang a lickin' on no-good bureaucratic nerds
* Customer - a fish seeking to licence his free redundancy protocol, CARP
* Sir Puffy of Ramsay - a freedom fighter who, with Little Bob of Beckley, took from the rich and gave to all
* Puff the Barbarian - born in a tiny bowl, Puff was a slave, now he hacks through the C
* James Pond, agent 077 - super spy and suave lady's man
* Puffy, the Kitten Slayer - hunting down the evil script kitties
* Puff Daddy - famed rapper and political icon
* The Businessman - holding tight to his documents
* Security Guards - keeping any eye out for the usual suspects
* The SSHerif - lawman with his faithful steed Codey
* a fish in an empty bowl, surround by fish bones and a cat

See also

*

External links

* [http://www.openbsd.org/art1.html Pictures of Puffy]
* [http://www.openbsd.org/orders.html T-shirts and posters with Puffy]
* [http://www.openbsd.org/lyrics.html The OpenBSD songs]