v$instance.family ?

in oracle 12.1 there appeared a column in v$instance which is not documented: v$instance.family

oracle docs

another new column which appeared is: v$instance.edition (which is documented):

EDITION 	VARCHAR2(7) 	The edition of the database.
Possible values include:
    CORE EE
    CORE SE
    EE
    PO
    SE
    XE

I never heard of oracle editions CORE EE, CORE SE and PO. A look at the source of gv$instance lists even more but others are missing:

decode(ksuxsedition,  2, 'PO', 4, 'SE', 8, 'EE', 16, 'XE', 32, 'CS', 40, 'CE', 'UNKNOWN')

Perhaps Oracle Support can put some light on this :) seems to be somehow related to cloud installations, but this is just a guess …