Fedora 17 is a [Beefy] Miracle

There’s been a lot of noise on Fedoraplanet and social media about the name that the community has chosen for Fedora 17. If you haven’t yet heard, the election results are in and the winner is “Beefy Miracle”. If you’re not familiar with the naming process for Fedora releases, it goes something like this: community members submit candidate names that are related ($name is a ___, as is $name-1) but not in the same way that $name-1 and $name-2 are related. Names are checked for collisions, conformity to the rules, and legality. Community members then vote on it. It’s a very open process, as you would expect from the Fedora Project.

Clearly, the community has spoken. Yes, it is a silly name. But it’s no sillier than Slutty Salamander or whatever the latest Adjective Animal from Ubuntu is. And let’s face it, there have been some less-than-awesome names in the previous 16 Fedora releases. Opponents of the name (and there are many, from what I can tell) can take solace in the fact that they’ll no longer have to hear anyone lobby for it. And the rest of us will just have to get to work trying to figure out what names to suggest for Fedora 18.