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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."

1 of 142 comments (clear)

  1. Re:For me, there are no Big *Two.* by xororand · · Score: 3, 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 (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.