Hello All,

As a chairman of the recently formed Ruby Association LLC[1], I
happily announce the result of our Ruby official logo contest.  

We received 203 logos from 103 people.  TLDs of their mail addresses
are .ac, .am, .as, .au, .biz, .com, .cx, .de, .dk, .edu, .es, .id,
.jp, .net, .org, .ru, .to, and .uk.

And the prize goes to Tom Schaub, from Lexington, Kentucky USA.  He
will receive a winner plate and 100,000 JPY (roughly 872 USD).   We
are now preparing a nice plate.

The selection criteria is following

 * avoid japonesque ones

   Even though Ruby is from Japan, and I am a Japanese, Ruby uses live
   all over the world.  Relying on single culture may not suitable for
   the world dominating language.

 * avoid cute ones

   In Japan, we have tradition to value cute things high.  But in
   worldwide, cute things are often considered immature.  I don't want
   Ruby to be considered juvenile.

 * avoid Rails related

   Ruby is far older than Rails, and perhaps will live longer than
   Rails.  Ruby on Rails rely on Ruby, not in reverse.

 * select Ruby (jewel) related

   Alter all, the top image of the language is Ruby jewel.  So I
   avoided rabbits, fairies, and other creatures.

In a process of selection, I strongly felt how good the previous one
was.  It's beautiful, simple and embodies the image of the language.
I belive the new one inherites those properties in spirit.  I really
appreciate the original designer, John Long.

I especially prefer the image part of the new logo, so we might use
the logo without "programming language" text.

							matz.
[1] http://www.ruby-assn.org/
[2] http://www.ruby-assn.org/logo-contest.html.ja
[2] http://www.ruby-assn.org/ruby-logo.jpg