Matthias Ettrich (born 14 June 1972) is a German

computer scientist A computer scientist is a scientist who specializes in the academic study of computer science. Computer scientists typically work on the theoretical side of computation. Although computer scientists can also focus their work and research on ...

and founder of the

KDE KDE is an international free software community that develops free and open-source software. As a central development hub, it provides tools and resources that enable collaborative work on its projects. Its products include the KDE Plasma gra ...

and

LyX LyX (styled as LYX; pronounced ) is an open-source software, open source, graphical user interface document processor based on the LaTeX typesetting system. Unlike most word processors, which follow the WYSIWYG ("what you see is what you get") ...

projects.

Early life

Ettrich was born in

Bietigheim-Bissingen Bietigheim-Bissingen ( or ; locally: ''Biedge-Bissenge'') is the second-largest town in the Ludwigsburg (district), district of Ludwigsburg, Baden-Württemberg, Germany with 42,515 inhabitants in 2007. It is situated on the river Enz and the riv ...

Baden-Württemberg Baden-Württemberg ( ; ), commonly shortened to BW or BaWü, is a states of Germany, German state () in Southwest Germany, east of the Rhine, which forms the southern part of Germany's western border with France. With more than 11.07 million i ...

West Germany West Germany was the common English name for the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) from its formation on 23 May 1949 until German reunification, its reunification with East Germany on 3 October 1990. It is sometimes known as the Bonn Republi ...

, and went to school in Beilstein while living with his parents in

Oberstenfeld Oberstenfeld () is a municipality in the district of Ludwigsburg in Baden-Württemberg in Germany. It is located about 40 km north of Stuttgart. Geography Oberstenfeld is located in the upper Bottwar river valley. It lies in the northeast o ...

. He passed the

Abitur ''Abitur'' (), often shortened colloquially to ''Abi'', is a qualification granted at the end of secondary education in Germany. It is conferred on students who pass their final exams at the end of ISCED 3, usually after twelve or thirteen year ...

in 1991. Ettrich studied for his MSc in Computer Science at the

Wilhelm Schickard Wilhelm Schickard (22 April 1592 – 24 October 1635) was a German professor of Hebrew and astronomy who became famous in the second part of the 20th century after Franz Hammer, a biographer (along with Max Caspar) of Johannes Kepler, claimed ...

Institute for Computer Science at the

University of Tübingen The University of Tübingen, officially the Eberhard Karl University of Tübingen (; ), is a public research university located in the city of Tübingen, Baden-Württemberg, Germany. The University of Tübingen is one of eleven German Excellenc ...

Career

He currently resides in

Berlin Berlin ( ; ) is the Capital of Germany, capital and largest city of Germany, by both area and List of cities in Germany by population, population. With 3.7 million inhabitants, it has the List of cities in the European Union by population withi ...

, Germany. He is currently focused on advising start-ups and corporations on digital transformation and in sound technical decision-making.

Free software projects

Ettrich founded and furthered the

project in 1995, initially conceived as a university term project. LyX is a graphical frontend to

LaTeX Latex is an emulsion (stable dispersion) of polymer microparticles in water. Latices are found in nature, but synthetic latices are common as well. In nature, latex is found as a wikt:milky, milky fluid, which is present in 10% of all floweri ...

. Since LyX's main target platform was

Linux Linux ( ) is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an kernel (operating system), operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically package manager, pac ...

, he started exploring different ways to improve the

graphical user interface A graphical user interface, or GUI, is a form of user interface that allows user (computing), users to human–computer interaction, interact with electronic devices through Graphics, graphical icon (computing), icons and visual indicators such ...

, ultimately leading him to the

project. Ettrich founded KDE in 1996 when he proposed on

Usenet Usenet (), a portmanteau of User's Network, is a worldwide distributed discussion system available on computers. It was developed from the general-purpose UUCP, Unix-to-Unix Copy (UUCP) dial-up network architecture. Tom Truscott and Jim Elli ...

a ''"consistent, nice looking free desktop environment"'' for

Unix-like A Unix-like (sometimes referred to as UN*X, *nix or *NIX) operating system is one that behaves in a manner similar to a Unix system, although not necessarily conforming to or being certified to any version of the Single UNIX Specification. A Uni ...

systems using Qt as its widget toolkit. On 6 November 2009, Ettrich was decorated with the

Federal Cross of Merit The Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany (, or , BVO) is the highest state decoration, federal decoration of the Federal Republic of Germany. It may be awarded for any field of endeavor. It was created by the first List of president ...

for his contributions to

free software Free software, libre software, libreware sometimes known as freedom-respecting software is computer software distributed open-source license, under terms that allow users to run the software for any purpose as well as to study, change, distribut ...

References

External links

The People Behind KDE: Interview with Matthias Ettrich (2000)

The People Behind KDE: Interview with Matthias Ettrich (2004)
1972 births Computer programmers Free software programmers German computer scientists KDE Living people People from Bietigheim-Bissingen Recipients of the Medal of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany {{Germany-compu-bio-stub