On Tue, Jul 27, 2021 at 6:30 PM Cat Lee Ball <c...@catball.dev.invalid> wrote:
> Hi everyone, > > I've been wondering and wanted to ask about the Apache Pig mascot: > > - > https://svn.apache.org/repos/asf/comdev/project-logos/originals/pig.svg > > > In particular: > > - Does anyone know if there's any history how this mascot came to be? > - What is the pig's name? Pronouns? > - Who drew the pig? > - Is the pig under any particular license? > Pig was originally developed at Yahoo, and then donated to Apache. As far as I recall the logo was drawn by someone in the Yahoo graphic design team and donated as part of the original code grant. I have no idea who the original artist was. I don't recall the pig in the logo ever having a name nor any particular pronoun being specified. I believe Apache's general approach on logos is that they are trademarked along with the software project name, even if the trademark is not registered. > > And more generally, > > - How was it decided to call this software "Apache Pig"? > Quoting from O'Reilly's _Programming Pig_ "The story goes that the researchers working on the project initially referred to it simply as 'the language'. Eventually they needed to call it something. Off the top of his head, one researcher suggested Pig, and the name stuck. It is quirky yet memorable and easy to spell. While some have hinted that the name sounds coy or silly, it has provided us with an entertaining nomenclature, such as Pig Latin for the language, Grunt for the shell, and PiggyBank for the CPAN-like shared repository." > > > I recently added the pig to the Wikipedia list of computing mascots, and > was > curious to learn more about it. > > - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_computing_mascots#P > > > Thanks, > Cat > Alan.
