I previously opened a discussion thread and a Fedora devel list thread to suggest that Fedora 42 reinstate a codename and make some other minor nods to celebrate reaching a milestone version in geek culture (the number 42 has great significance in the classic satirical science fiction series The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy).
The feedback on both of those sites has been largely positive, with the only real counter-arguments being that we retired codenames in the past in large part due to the legal efforts around getting them approved, particularly since we usually had numerous submissions from community members, all of which needed to be vetted.
I'd like to propose that, given the outpouring of support for this suggestion on both above discussion threads, that the Council formally approve the one-off use of a codename for Fedora 42 and proceed with the requisite legal vetting needed for that. I initally proposed "Adams" as the codename, since it's a relatively common name, but if Legal feels there would be an issue with that, we could always discuss other, related options as well.
If this theming is approved, we should communicate to the various artwork and ambassador teams what we would like to see them provide in terms of background images, swag (Fedora-embroidered towels were an excellent suggestion by @bookwar) and other related items.
I'd like to request that a decision be made on this before the end of 2024, so that there is time in 2025 to actually implement this if it's approved.
Metadata Update from @amoloney: - Issue tagged with: ticket-vote
+0
I see hidden work in the marketing and outreach behind the code name, why we are doing it, and who will own communications for this code name. Work that usually falls to me if there is not a clear owner or driver of the change. 😅 I also see questions coming about why we made an exception this time, and I see this potentially opening the door for more requests in the future. Which I would like to discourage, generally.
That said, I will be the last person to stand in the way of the community having some fun and novelty in how we build and produce what we do every six months. If this is what the people want, then let them have it. :) My main ask though is to please make realistic plans for what we can produce and create around this code name. Digital things are going to be easier than physical things. Swag is not as easy as you might think. 😅
Also, for anything with wallpapers and background images, the Design Team should be consulted ASAP because I believe they are already have draft artwork or some list of ideas for F42 artwork. Let's make sure not to accidentally burn our friendly neighborhood Design Team by overriding their process for packaging the wallpapers. Once this ticket is concluded, a ticket should be opened on GitLab with the Design Team ASAP.
+1
I really like this idea! But!
I acknlowledge there's a lot of work. Legal, marketing, including all of what Justin said above. And I'm personally not able to help with most of that. So please read my vote as in: "+1 if people can make it happen". Which I think is very likely, provided the huge positive response!
I'm +1 to this.
It can just be a quiet easter egg.
True!
Legal says it's fine.
To clarify some pieces around the retirement of code names, it wasn't purely due to legal. I was on the board at the time the decision was made.
There was a number of reasons for the retirement of release names: Firstly as has been indicated there is a large burden of time. The board would have to do a bunch of research to initially whittle down the number to reduce the burden on legal. While important this was not the primary reason.
The main reason is that naming is hard. Names also translate to numerous other things in the 100s of languages that Fedora supports, different words mean different things to different subsets of the community. This is not part of the legal review process.
The board had numerous complaints from the community about particular names due to the above. For example the "Beefy Miracle" and "Spherical Cow" names were a problem for our Hindu community because of the sanctity of the cow. This problem was somewhat of an unexpected broadside to the board at the time. Time has faded my memory to the exact details but as a board member I personally had dozens, possibly even 100s, of complaints about those names from that community, and I am aware that other board members did as well.
Another example of the "Naming is hard", while not directly related to Fedora code names, was a Fedora Remix in the early days of the support for Raspberry Pi by the name of "Pidora" which in Slavic languages (again, my memory is faint here) roughly translated to something like "whore". My involvement in the arm architecture bootstrap at the time also led my inbox to a lot of complaints from the community even though I was never directly involved in the Pidora remix.
There was also on the thread a suggestion to move back to release code names. Generally because of the above I am against that for the above reasons, but if we were I think they should be based purely on a deterministic formula such the elements of the periodic table EG F-28 = Nickel.
So given that there is passion involved, and hence the generally wide love of Douglas Adams, I don't believe we should be naming the release after this.
So my suggestion would actually be NOT to use a code name but rather celebrate the association with the number 42 (To be clear, I am an extreme fan of Douglas Adams and the associated hitch hikers series) in other ways through things like release notes and associated release related pieces to ensure that it keeps the actual software generic and neutral for all members of our community who may not understand the connection or believe in science fiction.
So while I may not have a vote I would be -1
Following todays council meeting, this request has been APPROVED (+5, 1, 0). Link to meeting is here https://meetbot.fedoraproject.org/meeting_matrix_fedoraproject-org/2024-12-18/fedora-council-meeting.2024-12-18-15.03.html
We should exercise caution though to not accidentally set a precedent that codenames will be returning to fedora, and be very clear on our communication that this is a once-off approval of use of a codename to enjoy the serendipitous event of releasing Fedora Linux 42.
Fedora will continue its policy of not using codenames for all other Fedora Linux releases, with the sole exception of Fedora Linux 42.
Thank you all for your feedback!
Metadata Update from @amoloney: - Issue close_status updated to: approved - Issue status updated to: Closed (was: Open)
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