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KDE Founder Receives Highest German Honor

Posted by Soulskill on from the other-than-beer dept.

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."

7 of 142 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Hmm... by Jesus_666 · · Score: 4, Informative

    Well, the German word for "cross" ("Kreuz") already starts with a K. Yes, we love KDE that much.

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  2. It is the least prestigious.. by henni16 · · Score: 5, Informative

    Actually, it is the "least prestigious" form of the "most prestigious" decoration.
    There are several classes of the Cross of Merit and from the picture it looks like he was awarded the "Medal of Merit", i.e. the lowest one.

  3. For me, there are no Big *Two.* by petrus4 · · Score: 3, 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.

    1. Re:For me, there are no Big *Two.* by c · · Score: 4, 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.

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  4. Re:It stands to reason by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

    If this is the only general award given by the German government that it is also the least prestigious, too?

    Yes, it is.
    There are, however, six different classes, so there is an "most" and "least" prestigious: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Cross_of_Merit
    3k to 5k decorations given each year, a total of 240k from 1951 (wikipedia).

    Nonetheless: Kongrats to him!!

  5. Re:It stands to reason by Sique · · Score: 2, 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.)

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    .sig: Sique *sigh*
  6. Re:Hmm... by gerddie · · Score: 2, Informative

    Well it's Bundesverdienstkreuz