14 DAY TRIAL // The openSUSE community has spoken, and the name and version of the new openSUSE release have been chosen. The project is undergoing some major changes, and they had to illustrate that with a name that sells it.
We've known for a while now that the developers are planning on changing the version number of OpenSuSE. The latest version that you can download right now is openSUSE 13.2, but the new release won't be 14. No, they are going with 42 and fans of "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" by Douglas Adams will immediately know what's that all about.
In Douglas Adams' book, 42 is a number provided by a supercomputer to the question "The answer to life, the universe and everything," so you know that the openSUSE devs are making this a very important release. They are saying that the modifications for this next release are so great and important that it requires a new version number that clearly shows the difference.
openSUSE Leap is the new name
The openSUSE community chose a new name for the project, after long deliberations and dozens and dozens of comments on the official mailing list. It's not enough to just change the version of the distribution, they also needed a proper name, and it looks like Leap is the one they chose.
"After due deliberations and consulting with the release and maintenance teams we have decided the name and version of the next release should be openSUSE Leap 42.x. We felt that Leap, with reference to motion, i.e. how the distribution moves forward, provides a nice contrast to Tumbleweed. It also represents that we are taking a leap to get there," wrote Richard Brown on the official mailing list.
The new openSUSE Leap 42 is expected to arrive in November, at SUSECon in Amsterdam. It's already been decided that it's going to an LTS release (long term support).