KDE Founder Receives Highest German Honor 142
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."
Re:Wait, what? (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.
Re:It stands to reason (Score:1, Interesting)
It seems like he got the Verdienstmedaille (Medal of Merit), not one of the Crosses.
Re:not that happy (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.
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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 use GNOME, but still, good on him. High-five mate
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.