The Truth Behind Red Hat Names

One of the great Red Hat Secrets is what is behind the names of the Red Hat releases. Here is what I have acertained from years of snooting around.

First off how does Red Hat come up with each name?

The rumour is that the names are always chosen on or close to the going gold day. Since 1998, Erik Troan has gone around on that day and asked for input from various people. The ideas have to be related to the last release. In the end Erik tries to come up with a name so that he wont be able come up with a matching one the next time. The reasoning being that he can stop being the person naming the releases at that time. It has yet to happen.

What are the names and what are their relation to each other?

Version	Code Name	Date of Release	Tie-In
0.8	Preview	Summer 1994	This was a release made by Marc Ewing and others to showcase Red Hat and RPP technology.
0.9	Halloween	Fall 1994 (Oct 31)	This was an almost ready to ship product. It has been a long tradition (maybe joke I never know) to try and get the Red Hat release out on October 31st so as to use another Halloween name or at least do a sequel.
1.0	Mother's Day	Summer 1995	I have really never seen this release. I remember reading about it on comps.os.linux at the time.. but nothing more than that.
1.1	Mother's Day	Late Summer 1995	I am guessing that this was a bug fix release to clean up issues with the first release.
2.0beta	Bluesky?	Late Late Summer 1995	This should have been the first release to use RPM technology. RPM was based off work from RPP, PMS, PM, and was written in perl.
2.0	NoName?	Early Fall 1995	RPM is officially unveiled to the world. One strength of RPM is the cross architectue usage allowing for ports to Alpha and M68k. This is the reason for upping the first number.
2.1	NoName?	Late Fall 1995	This is the first of the cross architecture releases. Red Hat was working on getting both the Intel and Alpha's ready for release. The upgrade from 2.0 to 2.1 was buggy but better than Slackware's at the time. I helped port a browser (Spyglass RedBaron) to the platform.
3.0.3	Picasso	March 1996	Notes about this release: Picasso is a painter Rumour has it that it was 3.0.3 because Slackware 3.0 was released at the same time, and people thought Red Hat would be accused of upping numbers in competition. RPM is rewritten in C (reason for major number upgrade). There are also changes in layout.
3.95	Rembrandt	August 1996	This is the beginning of the related release names. Rembrandt is a painter and a toothpaste.
4.0	Colgate	October 1996	Colgate is both a toothpaste and a family name that funded universities. The reason for a major number upgrade is the first release that tries for 3 architectures (Alpha, Sparc, Intel) with ideas that others might be added later depending on sales.
4.1	Vanderbilt	January 1997	Vanderbilt is a name of a family that funded universities.
4.2	Biltmore	May 1997	The Biltmore is a "castle" that the Vanderbilts built in the mountains of North Carolina. It is also a name of wines that are grown at the estates. [Finally this is the first release that I fully supported coming to Red Hat in May of 1997.]
4.95	Thunderbird	Summer 1997	Thunderbird is another name of wines. It is not held in high regard by most people. The Thunderbird is also a line of cards from Ford Automobiles. This was also the first "formalized" beta that was given out for feedback of changes that would occur in the main release.
4.96	Mustang	Fall 1997	Mustang is both a car from Ford Automobiles and an fighter airplane from World War II.
5.0	Hurricane	December 1997	This release marks big changes in Linux that Red Hat was showcasing. RPM was rewritten from scratch, better user configuration was a major goal, and Red Hat was one of the first to use glibc 2.0 for the library versus the glibc 1.x (libc5.2) that other releases were using. This was the reasoning for a major number increase. Hurricane is both a World War II fighter and a mixed drink.
5.1	Manhattan	June 1998	Manhatten is both a mixed drink, and by some historians the project that helped begin the Cold War.
5.2	Apollo	Fall 1998	The Apollo project has been cited as the first sign that the Cold War would have to end as the Soviet Union was unable to reach the moon without a major impact on their economy. [It has also been said that Manhatten and Apollo are both theatres, but the Cold War analogy was what I gave when I offered the name.] Apollo is also the name of a main character in the 1970's ABC television show Battlestar Galactica
5.9	Starbuck	????	Starbuck is both the character from Battlestar Galactica and a musical character from the broadway classic the Rain Maker.
6.0	Hedwig	????	Hedwig is the main character from the musical Hedwig and the Angry Itch. It is also the name of a Doctor Seuss character Changes in 6.0 are moving to glibc 2.1, changing from gcc to egcs-1.2, and using a 2.0 kernel. All of which make the release non-forwards compatible.
6.0.95	Lorax	????	Another Dr Seuss character and also a Word macro virus that does bad things to your computer.
6.1	Cartmann	Fall 1999	Another MS Word macro virus and a cartoon character.
6.1.95	Piglet	Winter 1999	A classical cartoon character and a character from the movie Monty Python and the Holy Grail.
6.2	Zoot	Spring 2000	Another Monty Python character and also a classy suit from the earlier part of the 20th century.
6.0.98	Pinstripe	Summer 2000	Another suit from the earlier parts of the 20th century, though not as snazzy. Pinstripe is also an ale. {Rumour was that the name Pinstripe is also in the credits for the movie Star Wars: A New Hope.}
7.0	Guinness	Late Summer 2000	This release was named after the beer from Ireland. {The rumour was that the release was named in honour and memory of Sir Alec Guinness, who starred in "The Man in the White Suit", "The Lavender Hill Mob", "Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy" among others. This release brings into the fold glibc-2.2, a newer gcc (using a beta called 2.96 in preperation of 3.0), and libraries and headers ready for a 2.4 kernel.

Stephen John Smoogen