The FreeDOS Beta 4 "Lemur" distribution was released 29 December 1999.
Codename
Jim always wanted to have a mascot for the FreeDOS Project (it's a gimmick.) Linux had the penguin, BSD had the daemon, and GNU had the gnu. Jim hadn't pushed the idea of officially adopting a FreeDOS mascot because he didn't want to get distracted by the noise that would create. Jim named the Lemur distribution as a way of "adopting" a mascot when we really didn't. Plus, Jim always thought lemurs looked cool.
History
This Wayback snapshot says "The Beta4 distribution was released on 29 Dec 1999." Assume that is the correct date.
Announcement
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