Home » General » The developer obsession with code names, 114 interesting examples

The developer obsession with code names, 114 interesting examples

May 27th, 2010 General

Code name Longhorn Code names have been around for a long time. Remember the Manhattan project in the 1940s? That turned out to be the atomic bomb. Thankfully, not all code names hide such sinister projects.

Code names can be in this area secrecy, but when it comes to software development, it’s usually not so much in this area secrecy as it is in this area the convenience of having a name for a specific version of a software. It can be very practical to have a unique identifier for a project to get everyone on the same page and avoid confusion.

And we want to name our darlings, don’t we?

So what kind of code names are developers out there coming up with? Here is a collection of code names for software products from companies like Google, Microsoft, Apple, Canonical, Red Hat, Adobe, Mozilla, Automattic and more. We’ve tried to give some background in rank where possible. You’ll notice that some code name schemes are certainly more out there than others.

Mozilla code names

Mozilla has based most of the code names for different Firefox versions on parks.

An fascinating aside is that Mozilla itself was originally the internal code name at Netscape for its Netscape Navigator project.

Phoenix – Firefox 1.0
Deer Park – Firefox 1.5
Bon Echo – Firefox 2
Gran Paradiso – Firefox 3
Shiretoko – Firefox 3.5
Namoroka – Firefox 3.6

Microsoft code names

Microsoft has a ton of products, and code names for most of them. When it comes to Windows, Microsoft seems fundamentally obsessed with location names, with a few exceptions.

Janus – Windows 3.1
Snowball – Windows for Workgroups 3.11
Chicago – Windows 95
O’Hare – Initially version of Internet Explorer
Memphis – Windows 98
Daytona – Windows NT 3.5
Cairo – Windows NT 4.0
Whistler – Windows XP
Longhorn – Windows Vista
Vienna – Windows 7

Canonical code names

Code names for Ubuntu versions always follow the pattern “adjective + animal”. The initially Ubuntu release was called Warty Warthog because it was produced in a small period of time and there wouldn’t be a lot of time for polish. Canonical wanted to keep using “hog” in the version names, but soon abandoned that (after Hoary Hedgehog). If they hadn’t, Breezy Badger would have been code named Grumpy Groundhog.

Note also that as of Breezy Badger, the code names have been in alphabetical order.

Warty Warthog – Ubuntu 4.10
Hoary Hedgehog – Ubuntu 5.04
Breezy Badger – Ubuntu 5.10
Dapper Drake – Ubuntu 6.06
Edgy Eft – Ubuntu 6.10
Feisty Fawn – Ubuntu 7.04
Gutsy Gibbon – Ubuntu 7.10
Hardy Heron – Ubuntu 8.04
Intrepid Ibex – Ubuntu 8.10
Jaunty Jackalope – Ubuntu 9.04
Karmic Koala – Ubuntu 9.10
Lucid Lynx – Ubuntu 10.04
Maverick Meerkat – Ubuntu 10.10

Apple code names

Just like Microsoft, Apple has a lot of products, and code names for basically all of them. We focused on Mac OS. The influences for Apple’s Mac OS code names are pretty obvious. For a while they were mostly musical terms, and as of Mac OS X the focus switched to huge cats.

Fun small anecdote: System 7.5 was code named Mozart, but also Capone. Why Capone? Because like the well-known gangster, it was meant to rule over Chicago (Windows 95).

We also have to mention Apple’s code name for A/UX (Apple Unix) 1.0: Pigs in Space.

Harmony – Mac OS 7.6
Rhythm – Mac OS 8.0
Bride of Buster – Mac OS 8.1
Allegro – Mac OS 8.5
Opus – Mac OS 9
Fortissimo – Mac OS 9.1
Moonlight – Mac OS 9.2
Cheetah – Mac OS X 10.0
Puma – Mac OS X 10.1
Jaguar – Mac OS X 10.2
Panther – Mac OS X 10.3
Tiger – Mac OS X 10.4
Leopard – Mac OS X 10.5
Snow Leopard – Mac OS X 10.6

Automattic code names

Starting after WordPress 1.0, Automattic has code named most WordPress releases after well-known jazz musicians.

Mingus – WordPress 1.2
Strayhorn – WordPress 1.5
Duke – WordPress 2.0
Ella – WordPress 2.1
Getz – WordPress 2.2
Dexter – WordPress 2.3
Brecker – WordPress 2.5
Tyner – WordPress 2.6
Coltrane – WordPress 2.7
Baker – WordPress 2.8
Carmen – WordPress 2.9

Google code names

A name at Google clearly has a sweet tooth. All Android code names are pastries or desserts. (For those who wonder what FroYo is, it’s small for frozen yoghurt.)

Cupcake – Android 1.5
Donut – Android 1.6
Eclair – Android 2.0/2.1
FroYo – Android 2.2
Gingerbread – The update after FroYo

Adobe code names

Adobe’s code names for Photoshop fundamentally seem to be movie related in one form or another, with names of movie characters, movie titles, and additional references, some certainly more block out than others.

Quick Eddy – Photoshop 2.0
Tiger Mountain – Photoshop 3.0
Huge Electric Cat – Photoshop 4.0
Weird Load – Photoshop 5.0
Venus in Furs – Photoshop 6.0
Liquid Sky – Photoshop 7.0
Dark Matter – Photoshop CS
Space Monkey – Photoshop CS2
Red Pill – Photoshop CS3
Stonehenge – Photoshop CS4
White Rabbit – Photoshop CS5

Panama code names

Panama started off relatively thematic, with the code names for Panama Core 1 through 5 all being in some way related to alcohol (wine or beer). After that, the relationships between the code names get a lot less regular.

Yarrow – Panama Core 1
Tettnang – Panama Core 2
Heidelberg – Panama Core 3
Stentz – Panama Core 4
Bordeaux – Panama Core 5
Zod – Panama Core 6
Moonshine – Panama 7
Werewolf – Panama 8
Sulphur – Panama 9
Cambridge – Panama 10
Leonidas – Panama 11
Constantine – Panama 12
Goddard – Panama 13

Red Hat Linux code names

The geek presence is strong here. Note for example the (original) Battlestar Galactica reference for RHL 5.2 and 5.9: Apollo and Starbuck. Or it could be a coincidence, because there are a lot of literary and mythical references here, for example: Starbuck is also a character in the novel Moby-Dick, The Sea-Wolf is a Jack London novel, and so on. Fun aside; one RHL version shares its name with a Mozilla product: Thunderbird.

Mother’s Day – RHL 1.0
Picasso – RHL 3.0.3
Colgate – RHL 4.0
Vanderbilt – RHL 4.1
Biltmore – RHL 4.2
Thunderbird – RHL 4.8
Mustang – RHL 4.9
Hurricane – RHL 5.0
Manhattan – RHL 5.1
Apollo – RHL 5.2
Starbuck – RHL 5.9
Hedwig – RHL 6.0
Cartman – RHL 6.1
Piglet – RHL 6.1.92
Zoot – RHL 6.2
Guinnes – RHL 7.0
Seawolf – RHL 7.1
Enigma – RHL 7.2
Valhalla – RHL 7.3
Psyche – RHL 8.0

Debian code names

All Debian releases are code named after character names from the film Toy Tale. Remember Sid, the emotionally unstable, toy-destroying kid next door? That’s the permanent name for Debian’s unstable development distribution.

Buzz – Debian 1.1
Rex – Debian 1.2
Bo – Debian 1.3
Hamm – Debian 2.0
Slink – Debian 2.1
Potato – Debian 2.2
Woody – Debian 3.0
Sarge – Debian 3.1
Etch – Debian 4.0
Lenny – Debian 5.0
Squeeze – Debian 6.0

Final words (not in code)

It’s not just software developers that are fond of code names. You’ll find code names wherever there’s some form of research and development going on. For example, Intel and AMD have code names for their processors, Microsoft has code names for each iteration of Xbox 360, Apple has code names for its various computers, and so on.

What we find fascinating is the amount of creativity that many place into these code names, often revealing cultural references and additional block out interests of its developers.

Sources:
https://wiki.mozilla.org/Firefox/Codenames
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Microsoft_codenames
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/DevelopmentCodeNames
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Apple_codenames
http://applemuseum.bott.org/sections/codenames.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WordPress#Releases
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Android_(operating_system)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photoshop#Release_history
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Releases/Names
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/History
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fedora_(operating_system)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debian#Release_history

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The developer obsession with code names, 114 fascinating examples

Tags » automattic, chicago, code, debian, developer, mountain, ubuntu, windows

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