Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!samsung!emory!att!att!dptg!mtune!rkh
From: rkh@mtune.ATT.COM (Robert Halloran)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.misc
Subject: Re: why is a kermit?
Message-ID: <892@mtune.ATT.COM>
Date: 28 Nov 90 18:20:27 GMT
References: <524@research.cc.flinders.oz>
Organization: AT&T BL Middletown/Lincroft NJ USA
Lines: 34

In article <524@research.cc.flinders.oz> phata@research.cc.flinders.edu.au (Zax) writes:
>did you ever get a question that was really simple and obvious but bloody
>near impossible to answer.
>i just got one:
>
>		"Why is kermit called kermit?"

Taken from "Kermit: A File Transfer Protocol" by Frank da Cruz, Columbia U:

"Why? Mostly because there was a Muppets calendar on the wall when we were trying
to think of a name, and Kermit is a pleasant, unassuming sort of character.
But since we weren't sure whether it was OK to name our protocol after this
popular television and movie star, we pretended that KERMIT was an acronym;
unfortunately, we could never find a good set of words to go with the letters,
as readers of some of our early source code can attest.  Later, while looking
through a name book for his forthcoming baby, Bill Catchings noticed that Kermit
was a Celtic word for 'free', which is what all Kermit programs should be, and
words to that effect replaced the strained acronyms in our source code.  When
BYTE magazine was preparing our 1984 Kermit article for publication, they
suggested we contact Henson Associates Inc for permission to say that we did
indeed name the protocol after Kermit the Frog.  Permission was kindly granted,
and now the real story can be told."


And that's.... the rest of the story.

Good day.
						Bob Halloran
=========================================================================
Internet: rkh@mtune.dptg.att.com		UUCP: att!mtune!rkh		
Disclaimer: If you think AT&T would have ME as a spokesman, you're crazed.
Quote: "Someday we'll find it, the Rainbow Connection,
	the lovers, the dreamers, and me" 	Jim Henson R.I.P.
=========================================================================