Fedora 13 to be named Goddard

Goddard and his liquid fuel propelled rocket The Fedora developers have announced that Fedora 13 will be named Goddard. Traditionally Fedora release names have a connection with the previous version's name. In this case, Fedora 12 was named Constantine and the connection to Goddard comes from rocket science.

Konstantin Tsiolkovksy was a Russian pioneer of theoretical rocket science. Robert Goddard was US professor of physics and a contemporary of Tsiolkovsky. He published A Method of Reaching Extreme Altitudes in 1919 and went on to launch the first liquid fuelled rocket in 1926. The H notes that the name, and its connection, evokes thoughts of a move from theoretical to applied science.

The name Goddard beat the other proposed names (Botany, Gloriana, Langstrom, Loana, Manfredi and Truro) in a vote with over 300 ballots cast in total. A history of Fedora release names is available on the project's wiki.

(djwm)