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Open Source Developer Knighted
unixfan writes "Georg Greve, developer of Open Document Format and active FOSS developer, has received a knighthood in Germany for his work. From the article: 'Some weeks ago I received news that the embassy in Berne had unsuccessfully been trying to contact me under FSFE's old office address in Zurich. This was a bit odd and unexpected. So you can probably understand my surprise to be told by the embassy upon contacting them that on 18 December 2009 I had been awarded the Cross of Merit on ribbon (Verdienstkreuz am Bande) by the Federal Republic of Germany. As you might expect, my first reaction was one of disbelief. I was, in fact, rather shaken. You could also say shocked. Quick Wikipedia research revealed this to be part of the orders of knighthood, making this a Knight's Cross.'"
So you can probably understand my surprise to be told by the embassy upon contacting them that on 18. December 2009 I had been awarded the Cross of Merit on ribbon ...
Your surprise (and assumption the rest of us are surprised) is a result of cultural conditioning. Open source developers are (in popular culture where I live) unshaven, smelly, poor, obese, socially awkward, annoying, nerdy, pimple ridden, inferior beasts dungeoned in their mother's basements because they are incapable of anything else.
Despite this being nothing further form the truth, it persists. We often take it in stride and joke about it but that's the conceptualization of a work force so damned important to the entire world it's almost a social injustice. Why, you'd probably have to travel to some "crazy European country" to find otherwise.
One of my friends became a volunteer firefighter because it was seen as dangerous and attracted females when he flaunted his credentials at bars. It was something he put on his resume to increase his pay. Open source should be along the same lines and I predict that in the distant future it will be when a more tech savvy generation realizes that something like ODF equates to billions of dollars in good will and stimulates their economy in the end.
Once a more accurate reflection of this or image is implanted in a generation of children, who knows what could happen?
Congratulations Sir Greve, you no doubt (in my mind) deserve this. Do not be uneasy, you are not alone.
My work here is dung.
Orders of merit which still confer privileges of knighthood are sometimes referred to as orders of knighthood. As a consequence of being not an order of chivalry but orders of merit or decorations, some republican honours have thus avoided the traditional structure found in medieval orders of chivalry and created new ones instead, e.g. the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany
You see, it says "knighthood" right there.
Lars T.
To the guy who modded me down from perfect to terrible Karma - Apple haters still suck
The US should give Richard Stallman the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
Especially since they forgot to mention is the founder (and president) of the FSF Europe.
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What have you done that's likely to last a hundred years?
There's plenty of recursive functions and while loops that spring to mind.
Science advances one funeral at a time- Max Planck