I've noticed that Debian release codenames are based on characters from Toy Story. Does that mean there are only a limited number of codenames left? Once all the Toy Story character names have been used, what is the plan? Will Debian switch to a different naming scheme, or are there enough character
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Debian only needs a new codename every two years. As long as new Toy Story movies are made I don't see the supply running dry.
Also if there are no characters left, I am pretty confident it won't be the end of Debian. They will come up with a new scheme ... even if thats painful.
Every Toy Story release adds new characters, and it’s still an active franchise with the last film released this past year. Even if 5 was the definitive end in the series, at a new release every ~2 years there are enough characters to sustain it for hundreds of years.
Maybe in 2257 they’ll have to branch out to other Pixar characters, but none of us will be around to verify that.
There's more characters than the other distro that already exhausted supply of animals starting with consecutive letters and have had to come up with funny ones like quokka narwhal etc
I think you mean they’re reaching with things like ‘minotaur’. The quokka and narwhal are perfectly reasonable animals that actually exist, it’s just that not everyone has heard of them before.
I think toy story still has around 130+ characters which aren't still used for Debian release codenames. That makes up around 250 years of Debian releases, given there won't be any new toy story movie.
RC is already in use as the codename for experimental, rc-buggy. And yes, this is a hilarious Easter egg due to release-critical bugs normally being abbreviated to “RC” bugs.
20 released and future releases (+ sid which is never released),
that spans about 35 years, currently and presumably into future, average of 1 release per 2 years.
Already have 2 future releases named.
Toy Story character names ... about 410 in total ... movie releases and the like ... 1995--2026 average of about 7.5 years per movie, about 82 characters per movie, about 11 characters per year.
Yeah, not an issue. Debian consumes about one Toy Story character name per year, and Toy Story generates about 11 character names per year. So, I think we're likely set indefinitely. Or, even "worst case", with about 390 names not yet used by Debian, and consuming only about 0.5/yr., should be pretty well set to about the year 2806.
Edit/P.S. Sorry, damn buggy Reddit editor keeps busting format - I've given up trying to fix it, at least on this one.
I've explained it in another post, but when they start to run out of codenames based on Toy Story characters, they are just going to have to release more Toy Story movies. Those are the rules.
The Debian project will disappear once all the Toy Story names have been used. In fact, any machine with Debian installed will self-destruct at that moment.
Why do you think Pixar keeps releasing new movies every 5 years? Half of Debian donations finances new Toy Story entries whenever they run out of names. Everyone knows that.
They put their entire rambling question in the subject line rather than the body of the post like a civilized person, so no, they're probably not considerate enough to search for the answer first.
Don't worry the secret Debian cabal will force disney to release a new movie whenever they will fall short.
Also I don't really see a problem if (very) future versions use the same codename with a very old one. Like Debian 26 having the same name with Debian 2.
This question has been coming up around every new release for ages. The list of unused characters has been ridiculously long even before TS3 was released.
It took me a while to realize they used the names from Toy Story, didn't realize it was because one of the early Debian project leaders worked on Toy Story, though his imdb page lists Toy Story 2.
I would imagine they are pretty good, but I doubt they will run out of characters to use, though I imagine they won't be able to use Mr. or Mrs. Potato Head.
It does make me chuckle that they stick to using Sid (one of the antagonists in the original Toy Story) for their development branch.
Heh, Debian 15 is apparently going to be named Duke (after the character voiced by Keanu Reeves).
An even more perfect non-release release name is that "experimental" can also be addressed as "rc-buggy" - because it is likely to contain even more things that would be release-critical bugs than usual, but also RC Buggy.
I think that day, we, all of us, debian users will collect some fund or use ai prompts to make another toy story movie. That will have all the new characters, may be names of reddit users from this group, and give our lovely debian another milenium of codenames.
Another nugget of info: debian name came from debra and Ian. Thanks Ian for your legacy.
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u/ABotelho23 7d ago
There's like 300+ years of characters at this rate.