Jiilik Oiolosse writes "KDE founder Matthias Ettrich was decorated today with the German Federal Cross of Merit for his contributions to Free Software. The Federal Cross of Merit is both the most prestigious as well as the only general decoration awarded by the Federal Republic of Germany. It is awarded by the Federal President for outstanding achievements in the political, economic, cultural, and other fields. Matthias was awarded the medal in recognition of his work spurring innovation and spreading knowledge for the common good."
Except if it wasn't for GNOME Qt would still be proprietary. It's easy to neglect the impacts OSS projects have on eachother, even if they don't share one single row of code.
and we have all seen what happened to that GNU created hero (!) after he went to Novell. Do you really want to raise this "proprietary" crap for sure? Even GNU Debian Linux (there is a reason for that name) got infected by his wannabe framework (!) because of some trivial note taking application.
Now multi billion mobile/services giant Nokia, who doesn't need money like poor Trolltech has made the project free/GPL. I don't see any "Qt is proprietary" trolls cheering. It was so wrong to ask for money while companies making millions/billions with your full fledged framework isn't it? For example, Google, Adobe, Last.fm doesn't need to pay?
GNU's biggest mistake was making that trojan guy a hero while he didn't deserve it. He was just another person, a MS reject who did 1000th clone of Norton Commander, that is all.
And, I'm not saying that just because I happen to be a Republican...
I'm saying that, as, a practical matter of bringing about world peace, its awfully hard to hate the Germans when they've done such a wonderful job through the years with KDE and KDevelop. There's a world peace argument to be made for that. How many hundreds of thousands of people use KDE?
Actually, it is the "least prestigious" form of the "most prestigious" decoration.
There are several classes of the Cross of Merit [wikipedia.org] and from the picture it looks like he was awarded the "Medal of Merit", i.e. the lowest one.
Actually, it is the "least prestigious" form of the "most prestigious" decoration.
There are several classes of the Cross of Merit [wikipedia.org] and from the picture it looks like he was awarded the "Medal of Merit", i.e. the lowest one.
It is the lowest class - but the lower classes are way more prestigious, since the highest classes are only awarded to politicians and their personal friends (rather than people of merit)...
The Federal Cross of Merit is both the most prestigious as well as the only general decoration awarded by the Federal Republic of Germany.
Wouldn't that also make it the least prestigious general decoration?
Yeah, that's worded weirdly.
It is the only federal award, making it the most prestigious amongst all (federal + non-federal - there's lots of those) official German state awards.
It has multiple classes however, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Cross_of_Merit [wikipedia.org] I can't find any reference to which
one was awarded to Mr. Ettrich - I'd suspect it to be one of the not-so-high ones however.
by Anonymous Coward
on Saturday November 07, @12:07AM (#30012544)
On other unrelated news, Miguel de Icaza was given the Golden Windows medal by Microsoft's Steve Ballmer, for his outstanding job at undermining Free Software principles, and destroying Linux from within.
Slashdot humor aside for a moment, it's truly a great honour to be recognized by one's country, and Matthias ought to be proud of the accomplishments of himself and the KDE community.
Keep up the good work Matthias and all the KDE folks. You deserve this, and your efforts are appreciated (though sorry, slashdot doesn't give out Crosses of Merit, yet)
by Anonymous Coward
on Saturday November 07, @12:42AM (#30012616)
Kind of ironic, given, umm, World War II and stuff, which country seems more free now.
But that represents such a freer mindset than exists in the USA. I can't imagine in my wildest dreams the highest national medal of the US going to a libre software person. It would take Linus Torvalds being elected our President... and even then, he'd have no way to push this past Congress.
Although I don't normally use the Big Two, when I have, the only positive experiences I've ever had, have been with KDE.
Despite its' bloat, the system is absolutely gorgeous visually, and to my mind has been ahead of XP in that department almost since its' inception. Konqueror is also the single most versatile and powerful file manager that I've ever used. Local file management and remote web browsing in two panes of the same window are awesome, but it is still more versatile than IE as well, in terms of the number of different modes, and the integration with Konsole that it allows.
Although it isn't much, KDE is also closer in design terms to the UNIX philosophy as well; the different parts are more cleanly encapsulated than GNOME, and it's more self-contained, as well.
It isn't the more popular of the two major DEs, presumably due to not being Stallman-approved for the entirety of its' history...but it is overwhelmingly the better one.
Although it isn't much, KDE is also closer in design terms to the UNIX philosophy as well; the different parts are more cleanly encapsulated than GNOME, and it's more self-contained, as well.
On the other hand, if you look at it from a developer's side, GTKMM [gtkmm.org] (the C++ interface of GTK) might be closer to the UNIX philosophy of "do one thing only, and do that right". While Qt reinvents the wheel so many times, by using its own classes for many things, like QString or QThread, or by implementing its own slot & signal system with a C++ preprocessor, GTKMM uses standard and existing libraries wherever possible.
Qt: Signal handling with macros and its own custom C++ preprocessor GTKMM: libsigc++, template-based signal handling
Of course that's just one way of looking at it but I wouldn't call any of the two less close to the UNIX philosophy. On the end user's side, both have an abstract VFS to file management on remote resources, etc...
That said, kongratulations, Matthias! I hope this award encourages others to dedicate their time for the greater good.
the problem is that Qt should run on many different platforms so it cannot depend on many external libraries that probably would run only on unix-like system, this way is much easier for developers to deploy their app everywhere
> While Qt reinvents the wheel so many times, by using its own classes > for many things, like QString or QThread, or by implementing its own > slot & signal system with a C++ preprocessor
They started writing Qt in 1991. I don't know about you, but I was writing C++ on Linux/Unix throughout the 90's, and if you weren't reinventing the wheel and writing your own class libraries, you were either paying a lot of cash for someone else's toolkit or you weren't writing portable code.
I'm sure the situation has improved immensely, but old habits like that...
KDE 4 has limited the usefulness of Konqueror in favour of Dolphin. KDE being open source, this will certainly improve over time, but I am running 4.3.2 and some pills are still hard to swallow. Fwiw, my gf and my work boxes run 3.5.10 and will unfortunately continue to do so for some time.
Thank you and the entire KDE team for a nice desktop environment. Your vision and dedication deserves this award.
My desktop has been KDE for a several years, and I always like it. The early KDE4 in Kubuntu 9.04 was fragile and broken in many ways. I almost gave up on it, but decided to give it a shot in the one week old Kubuntu 9.10 (karmic) which has KDE 4.3.2. I can say it is usable again, and I am exploring the new features and liking them.
And KDE's pick of a non-FOSS toolkit to build on was a grave error that could have done enormous damage.
Its' lack of Stallman's approval has enormously harmed KDE's degree of uptake and use, yes.
I continue to pray for the end of the Free Software Foundation. If Stallman and its' other members truly wanted to help their fellow man at this point, they would voluntarily dissolve the organisation, and withdraw into anonymity.
KDE was founded by open sourcers, not free software evangelists, as such, it was founded on a pragmatic base. Qt was one of the best GUI toolkits at the time and KDE got a free-as-in-beer deal to use it, the devs acknowledged that the whole wasn't open but (shock, horror) they thought producing a working Desktop Environment to be more important then rewriting Qt from scratch (that was on a roadmap I believe, but it was low priority). GNOME came into existence by the Free Software people who couldn't bare ha
People always bitch about C++ but that language is ultimately as messy or clean as you make it (Don't do stupid crap, use simpler constructs when they're good enough)
This is what it comes down to with any language that doesn't deliberately limit the coder with enforced abstraction. Just do not do retarded stuff. And don't let terrible programmers use languages that give them low-level control. Even better - don't let terrible programmers write programs.
On the topic of the Mr Ettritch, well I think that's pretty cool. Nice to hear a story about someone dedicating years of effort to something constructive and getting recognition from authorities outside his field. I us
No, the Germans named all their awards the same and make a difference just by the level. The Federal Cross of Merit thus has nine levels. (I am still trying to find out which level he got.)
Ha (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Ha (Score:5, Insightful)
Take THAT gnome!
Except if it wasn't for GNOME Qt would still be proprietary. It's easy to neglect the impacts OSS projects have on eachother, even if they don't share one single row of code.
Parent
Re:Ha (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:Ha (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Will Gnome 3 link to Mono? (Score:4, Insightful)
and we have all seen what happened to that GNU created hero (!) after he went to Novell. Do you really want to raise this "proprietary" crap for sure? Even GNU Debian Linux (there is a reason for that name) got infected by his wannabe framework (!) because of some trivial note taking application.
Now multi billion mobile/services giant Nokia, who doesn't need money like poor Trolltech has made the project free/GPL. I don't see any "Qt is proprietary" trolls cheering. It was so wrong to ask for money while companies making millions/billions with your full fledged framework isn't it? For example, Google, Adobe, Last.fm doesn't need to pay?
GNU's biggest mistake was making that trojan guy a hero while he didn't deserve it. He was just another person, a MS reject who did 1000th clone of Norton Commander, that is all.
Parent
Re:Ha (Score:5, Funny)
Actually, Miguel de Icaza has already received one of the highest American honors: a corporate vice-presidency.
Parent
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
He also got the Golden Wall and Fence medal from Ballmare. For supporting windows and gates.
Mercy (Score:2)
Gnome doesn't need any more beating while that MS employee is still in the project itself.
Kongratulations! (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
All the kommedians out of work, and you had to start.
Hmm... (Score:4, Funny)
Posted from Konqueror.
Re:Hmm... (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Well it's Bundesverdienstkreuz [wikipedia.org]
Runner up (Score:5, Funny)
He deserves it more than Obama / Gore do. (Score:2)
And, I'm not saying that just because I happen to be a Republican...
I'm saying that, as, a practical matter of bringing about world peace, its awfully hard to hate the Germans when they've done such a wonderful job through the years with KDE and KDevelop. There's a world peace argument to be made for that. How many hundreds of thousands of people use KDE?
Now, can they finish KDevelop 4, PLEASE. :-)
Re:He deserves it more than Obama / Gore do. (Score:4, Insightful)
And, I'm not saying that just because I happen to be a Republican...
This is true. Obama getting the Nobel Peace Prize was an absolute farce, and you could tell that he knew that himself.
I don't view Obama as a monster, but he is no saviour, and no Messiah either.
Parent
Wait, what? (Score:4, Funny)
The Federal Cross of Merit is both the most prestigious as well as the only general decoration awarded by the Federal Republic of Germany.
Wouldn't that also make it the least prestigious general decoration?
Re:Wait, what? (Score:5, Funny)
Wouldn't that also make it the least prestigious general decoration?
Better than a coat of paint.
Parent
It is the least prestigious.. (Score:5, Informative)
There are several classes of the Cross of Merit [wikipedia.org] and from the picture it looks like he was awarded the "Medal of Merit", i.e. the lowest one.
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
There is a lie in every slashdot summary, its like its a natural law or something.
Re:It is the least prestigious.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually, it is the "least prestigious" form of the "most prestigious" decoration. There are several classes of the Cross of Merit [wikipedia.org] and from the picture it looks like he was awarded the "Medal of Merit", i.e. the lowest one.
It is the lowest class - but the lower classes are way more prestigious, since the highest classes are only awarded to politicians and their personal friends (rather than people of merit)...
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
The Federal Cross of Merit is both the most prestigious as well as the only general decoration awarded by the Federal Republic of Germany.
Wouldn't that also make it the least prestigious general decoration?
Yeah, that's worded weirdly.
It is the only federal award, making it the most prestigious amongst all (federal + non-federal - there's lots of those) official German state awards.
It has multiple classes however, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Cross_of_Merit [wikipedia.org] I can't find any reference to which
one was awarded to Mr. Ettrich - I'd suspect it to be one of the not-so-high ones however.
He, and many others, deserve it (Score:3, Insightful)
Good (Score:2)
Good - What a nice recognition for hard work in public service.
The bad news (Score:3, Funny)
He received it as a plasmoid and it crashed his desktop. But it looks nice.
On the other side of the fence (Score:4, Funny)
On other unrelated news, Miguel de Icaza was given the Golden Windows medal by Microsoft's Steve Ballmer, for his outstanding job at undermining Free Software principles, and destroying Linux from within.
Congratulations Matthias (Score:5, Insightful)
Slashdot humor aside for a moment, it's truly a great honour to be recognized by one's country, and Matthias ought to be proud of the accomplishments of himself and the KDE community.
Keep up the good work Matthias and all the KDE folks. You deserve this, and your efforts are appreciated (though sorry, slashdot doesn't give out Crosses of Merit, yet)
Wow, the culture must be very different from U.S. (Score:3, Insightful)
Kind of ironic, given, umm, World War II and stuff, which country seems more free now.
But that represents such a freer mindset than exists in the USA. I can't imagine in my wildest dreams the highest national medal of the US going to a libre software person. It would take Linus Torvalds being elected our President ... and even then, he'd have no way to push this past Congress.
For me, there are no Big *Two.* (Score:4, Informative)
Although I don't normally use the Big Two, when I have, the only positive experiences I've ever had, have been with KDE.
Despite its' bloat, the system is absolutely gorgeous visually, and to my mind has been ahead of XP in that department almost since its' inception. Konqueror is also the single most versatile and powerful file manager that I've ever used. Local file management and remote web browsing in two panes of the same window are awesome, but it is still more versatile than IE as well, in terms of the number of different modes, and the integration with Konsole that it allows.
Although it isn't much, KDE is also closer in design terms to the UNIX philosophy as well; the different parts are more cleanly encapsulated than GNOME, and it's more self-contained, as well.
It isn't the more popular of the two major DEs, presumably due to not being Stallman-approved for the entirety of its' history...but it is overwhelmingly the better one.
Re:For me, there are no Big *Two.* (Score:4, Interesting)
Although it isn't much, KDE is also closer in design terms to the UNIX philosophy as well; the different parts are more cleanly encapsulated than GNOME, and it's more self-contained, as well.
On the other hand, if you look at it from a developer's side, GTKMM [gtkmm.org] (the C++ interface of GTK) might be closer to the UNIX philosophy of "do one thing only, and do that right". While Qt reinvents the wheel so many times, by using its own classes for many things, like QString or QThread, or by implementing its own slot & signal system with a C++ preprocessor, GTKMM uses standard and existing libraries wherever possible.
Qt: QString, QList, QVector
GTKMM: std::string, std::list, std::vector
Qt: Signal handling with macros and its own custom C++ preprocessor
GTKMM: libsigc++, template-based signal handling
Of course that's just one way of looking at it but I wouldn't call any of the two less close to the UNIX philosophy. On the end user's side, both have an abstract VFS to file management on remote resources, etc...
That said, kongratulations, Matthias! I hope this award encourages others to dedicate their time for the greater good.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:For me, there are no Big *Two.* (Score:5, Informative)
> While Qt reinvents the wheel so many times, by using its own classes
> for many things, like QString or QThread, or by implementing its own
> slot & signal system with a C++ preprocessor
They started writing Qt in 1991. I don't know about you, but I was writing C++ on Linux/Unix throughout the 90's, and if you weren't reinventing the wheel and writing your own class libraries, you were either paying a lot of cash for someone else's toolkit or you weren't writing portable code.
I'm sure the situation has improved immensely, but old habits like that...
c.
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
KDE 4 has limited the usefulness of Konqueror in favour of Dolphin. KDE being open source, this will certainly improve over time, but I am running 4.3.2 and some pills are still hard to swallow.
Fwiw, my gf and my work boxes run 3.5.10 and will unfortunately continue to do so for some time.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Fwiw, my gf and my work boxes run 3.5.10
Dude. You just referred to your computer as your girlfriend. In public. That's too geeky, even by my standards.
which accent? (Score:2)
I wonder if he used his British accent to accept this award?
Thank you ... (Score:3)
Mattias
Thank you and the entire KDE team for a nice desktop environment. Your vision and dedication deserves this award.
My desktop has been KDE for a several years, and I always like it. The early KDE4 in Kubuntu 9.04 was fragile and broken in many ways. I almost gave up on it, but decided to give it a shot in the one week old Kubuntu 9.10 (karmic) which has KDE 4.3.2. I can say it is usable again, and I am exploring the new features and liking them.
Re:not that happy (Score:4, Insightful)
There was a real choice of FOSS toolkits back then?
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
"I think KDE and Gnome together really screwed the community by picking such bad languages and platforms"
Are you a fucking retard? C and C++ are bad languages??
Re: (Score:2)
pls dun feed th trolls ty hth hand
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Are you a fucking retard? C and C++ are bad languages??
Only from an engineering and systems design point of view. Otherwise they're fine.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
And KDE's pick of a non-FOSS toolkit to build on was a grave error that could have done enormous damage.
Its' lack of Stallman's approval has enormously harmed KDE's degree of uptake and use, yes.
I continue to pray for the end of the Free Software Foundation. If Stallman and its' other members truly wanted to help their fellow man at this point, they would voluntarily dissolve the organisation, and withdraw into anonymity.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
KDE was founded by open sourcers, not free software evangelists, as such, it was founded on a pragmatic base. Qt was one of the best GUI toolkits at the time and KDE got a free-as-in-beer deal to use it, the devs acknowledged that the whole wasn't open but (shock, horror) they thought producing a working Desktop Environment to be more important then rewriting Qt from scratch (that was on a roadmap I believe, but it was low priority). GNOME came into existence by the Free Software people who couldn't bare ha
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
People always bitch about C++ but that language is ultimately as messy or clean as you make it (Don't do stupid crap, use simpler constructs when they're good enough)
This is what it comes down to with any language that doesn't deliberately limit the coder with enforced abstraction. Just do not do retarded stuff. And don't let terrible programmers use languages that give them low-level control. Even better - don't let terrible programmers write programs.
On the topic of the Mr Ettritch, well I think that's pretty cool. Nice to hear a story about someone dedicating years of effort to something constructive and getting recognition from authorities outside his field. I us
Re: (Score:2)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nick_Riviera [wikipedia.org]
Re: (Score:2)
I didn't even read what I was pasting there. Shows you how relevant the Simpsons are the me. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lionel_Hutz [wikipedia.org]
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
No, the Germans named all their awards the same and make a difference just by the level. The Federal Cross of Merit thus has nine levels. (I am still trying to find out which level he got.)