Talk:Kermit (protocol)

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Anyone object to me moving this somewhere and making a dab page for here? Surely the frog is at least as famous. Morwen - Talk 16:16, 8 Jun 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Requested move

I would suggest Kermit should be a disambiguation, and this be moved somewhere - possibly to Kermit (protocol)? Articles for the dab page: Kermit the Frog (arguably the most famous), Kermit, Texas and Kermit, West Virginia. sjorford #£@%&$?! 10:00, 14 September 2005 (UTC)

  • Oppose. See Kermit (disambiguation). --Philip Baird Shearer 15:27, 14 September 2005 (UTC)
    • ... which you've just created. You had me worried there for a second, I thought it'd been there all along and I'd missed it. Anyway, my opinion is unchanged. sjorford #£@%&$?! 20:48, 14 September 2005 (UTC)
  • Support, agree with Curps. -Hapsiainen 10:43, 27 September 2005 (UTC)

Move complete: Kermit is now the dab page, and the protocol was moved to Kermit (protocol). --Mairi 18:12, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Origin of the name "kermit"

This article currently asserts Kermit was named for the Kermit the Frog from the Muppets. If this is so, there ought to be a reference to back it up.

On the one hand, Kermit the Frog and the Muppets were on TV in the 1970s, and kermit the protocol was written in 1981-82 at Columbia University, so time-wise, it could be true.

On the other hand:

  • The Free Online Dictionary of Computing (on which this article is based) says nothing about the origin of the name.
  • I searched Columbia University's history of kermit, and found no mention of frog or Muppet.
  • In old kermit source code, I found this:

MICRO COMPUTER FILE INTERCHANGE/KERMIT PROTOCOL. THIS VERSION IS FOR USE UNDER NOS/BE. IN CASE YOU ARE WONDERING, KERMIT STANDS FOR (K)L10 (E)RROR-FREE (R)ECIPROCAL (M)ICROPROCESSOR (I)NTERCHANGE OVER (T)TY LINES.

I would say the preponderance of the evidence is against being named for Kermit the Frog. Any other evidence? Jedwards01 01:04, 9 November 2005 (UTC)


  • A current web page at Columbia University states: The Kermit protocol and software are named after Kermit the Frog, star of the television series, The Muppet Show; the name Kermit is used by permission of Henson Associates, Inc. Let's leave it the way it is. Jedwards01 01:36, 9 November 2005 (UTC)
  • I will risk the ire of copyright gods by quoting the entire footnote 3 from page 3 of Frank da Cruz, Kermit: A File Transfer Protocol, Digital Press, 1987, ISBN 0-932376-88-6:

3. 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 this effect replaced the strained acronyms in our source code (Bill's baby turned out to be a girl, so he had to name her Becky instead). 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. I resisted the temptation, however, to call the present work “Kermit the Book.”

[edit] Bootstrapping

The bootstrapping mentioned is not booting a computer. It should be made more clear. I cannot think of a good enough way to write it, so I'masking for assistance.--Jimktrains 19:43, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

Alterning the link from [[Bootstrapping (computing])] to Bootstrapping (computing)#Software Bootstrapping should cover it. --Philip Baird Shearer 13:26, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

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