Is mainnet and Homestead the same thing? [duplicate]

Question

I understand that mainnet is the official public (real-world) Ethereum blockchain that everyone uses to send real Ether to each other.

However, sometimes I see Ethereum being refered to as Homestead. Does the terms refer to the same thing?

Answer 1

The Mainnet as you've correctly identified is the public (production) version of the Ethereum blockchain.

Ethereum implementations have had period releases with Homstead being the latest release.

The ETHEREUM mainnet and the ETHEREUM nodes that are currently part of the mainnet will be running the Homestead release of the protocol.