Congrats Dr. TON 
. Well deserved
Congratulations Dr. Ton!
At the risk of sounding negative: The only big deal is that Blender now is recognized in academia. Also, even though Ton is the one who started the Blender project in the first place (in NaN days), only honoring him ignores that Blender is not the result of a single man, but of many people: Those who helped developing it at NaN, those who donated to free the source, those who continue developing it, those who use it and file bug reports or ask for improvements ⊠Tonâs honoring plays into the (quite attractive) clichĂ© of a lone individual furthering humanity, whereas in reality often (or in most cases?) it is the result of many individuals working together.
Also, the costumes are butt ugly:p
How about Dr. T.
Then he could say things like, âI pity the fool that mess with Dr. T!â.
I bet Ton would look sweet in some overalls and gold chains too.
But the mohawk?
Johnathan_S, why so negative?
itâs not like Ton forgot about the other people who help(ed) Blender get to this point.
Giving everyone who contributed a single line of code would be impossible, hence honoring the person who leads the developers makes sense.
and iâm sure the developers also feel a bit proud of themselfs for this honor.
Congratulations!
Congratulations. Well deserved.
+100 internets to Dr Ton.
he cures our 3d illness ;D
Fantastic.
He looks like Atrus!
I like âDr. Roâ better:
He was thought invincible
No enemy could kill him
This summer, everything changes
This summer, James Bond fights Dr. Ro
Yeah but in the UK, we have knighthoods and even monarchy. Sir Ton, slayer of dragons or King Ton, slayer of dragons.
In some ways, you could say that there are others who are deserving of a similar accolade. Judging by this site:
http://www.ohloh.net/p/blender/contributors
Theeth and Cambo and others deserve recognition for the sheer quantity of work (4 million + lines of code changes!! - I guess thereâs a remote possibility it was just one line changed 4 million times) and Nathan, Matt Ebb, Brecht and so on contribute a lot of great developments.
So yes, these people deserve credit but Ton is a very essential key element and a driving force in Blender development making important decisions over the direction Blender should go in.
The ideal that people often like to see in open source is where everyone gets their freedom and say in what happens. The reality is that due to flaws in human nature, this system just doesnât work because not everyone agrees on the direction to go and a lot of people have really stupid ideas. This is why there needs to be a decider or minority of deciders who have a focus to make the right decisions and avoid diluting a product.
You canât give everyone an award or you risk taking away any meaning in that award. Ton is deserving of it and the other developers are recognized through it. Also if they are as intelligent as their work suggests then awards like these are meaningless anyway as they are well aware of the impact their work has and the gratitude the people affected by it have for it and that is a better reward - to know that youâve made a difference than to have people tell you that you have.
These awards are also given out to people who sit themselves in a cupboard for 4 years working on the most esoteric and useless theses that have no impact on the real world so the award itself has no value. As I say, the reward has already been delivered, this is just a news event telling the world a part of what Blender users already knew.