ping6: why TTL instead of Hop Limit?

Hello everyone,

I was just wondering why there is a TTL-field in ping6, although the
corresponding field in the IPv6 header is called "Hop Limit". [1]

Example:

ping6 -c 1 www.linux-ipv6.org
64 bytes from 2001:200:dff:fff1:216:3eff:fea4:f9e9: icmp_seq=1 ttl=48 time=309 ms

What I expected:

64 bytes from 2001:200:dff:fff1:216:3eff:fea4:f9e9: icmp_seq=1 hl=48 time=309 ms

Anyone an idea?
Should I write a patch or is there a special reason for this?

best regards,
Dan

[1] RFC 2460, 3.  IPv6 Header Format, page 4,
http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc2460#page-4
-- 
Dan Luedtke
http://www.danrl.de