This RFC seems to have been received with no ill will at all, except that most who responded preferred first to ask O'Reilly for open permission to use the Camel, and go for a new symbol if that failed. Since nobody had any problems with it, and it was well accepted, and since it's getting close to deadline time, I've frozen this RFC as final. The symbol that would be commonly used for this is the Camel, of course, but that symbol has strict trademark restrictions, and is unsuitable for the purpose of identification. Sadly, no other symbol is currently recognized to symbolize Perl and its community, and a freely available symbol is definitely needed. The concept is simple.
People rally around a common symbol for their common goals.
Linux has Tux, the cute little Penguin. GNU has the gnu, the wonderful wildebeest. Christians have a cross, Jews have the Star of David, Muslims the crescent moon. Perl programmers have nothing, unless they're on special terms with a trademark holder. Additionally, the Perl community as a whole should have a single symbol to stand behind.