Fursty Ferret, Pickled Partridge, Hopping Hare... could this be a forked series of Ubuntu distributions? No, it's something much more constructive than that.

The names are seasonal beers, from a 200-year old brewery in the West of England - Hall and Woodhouse, best known for its Badger beer.

ZDnet likes seasonal beer, but our local serves Shepherd Neame, so I only heard of the Badger's seasonal relatives at the Lulworth Cove Inn in Dorset at the weekend.

Is it just a minor coincidence, or is Hall and Woodhouse an open source user? Linux and beer have a long standing connection, explored in the nine-year series of Linuxbierwanderungen where the stability and richness of Fursty, Hopping and Pickled have probably been discussed already.



Ubuntu has already used Feisty Fawn and Hardy Heron in its alphabetical release sequence, so we won't see versions called Fursty Ferret or Hopping Hare. But Pickled Partridge could be a possibility in 2012...